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?

If you’ve been around the blogosphere lately you’ve probably seen several bloggers hashing out the ideas of discipleship/small groups/organic church vs. ‘traditional’ church.  I’ve had some opportunity to read some of the stuff that these guys are writing and also had some great conversations with some of them.

Perry Noble wrote a post that basically outlined the things that he is struggling with in terms of discipleship.  He mentioned a person wrote to others wondering what their churches were doing to make discipleship.  The caveat was that this could not be on Sunday mornings.  Being a pastor, Perry obviously didn’t agree with that point.  My thought is that discipleship must happen during gatherings such as Sunday worship.  Many churches have Bible teaching times outside of the worship setting as well.  I’ve seen this done tremendously well in a church plant I was on staff at in the Minneapolis area.  I was always impressed that we could gather 50 plus people for an hour each week and they engaged and implemented what we taught.  Amazing!  Should discipleship extend beyond Sunday mornings?  Certainly, but to say that it cannot and does not happen is simply insane.

Perry defined discipleship as teaching someone to walk with Jesus, picking them up when they fall down and teaching them to feed themselves.  Pretty straightforward definition if you ask me.  Perry did mention that it is difficult to make disciples without first having converts…not sure I agree totally there, but could be a matter of semantics and when the point of conversion actually happens.

Anyway..thoughts? Comments? Smart remarks?

Check out these guys for some more reading in this vein.

Chris Elrod

Brian Jones — He has a great series of posts on the idea of small groups….Loved it. Thanks, Brian.

I’ve discussed the Organic/SImple/House church model here at some length.  I’m obviously a fan.  I’ve read a lot from various sources over the years about how these types of churches play out and what some of these guys have to say about mainline churches.

The number one thing that discourages me about being identified with/being a part of a movement of Organic/SImple/House churches is that a number of folks in that camp seem to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  They are under the impression that their meeting in their smaller groups is all that there is to it. While I understand some of their reasoning, I really don’t understand it.  Cell Churches, which are basically house churches that also meet on Sunday for celebratory worship, have thrived in various parts of the world for years.  Christ the King Community Church in Washington State has done an outstanding job of centering their mission and vision around small groups, but also convening together in larger gatherings.  They have done this quite well across the United States of America and also globally as well.  This is just one example, but there are many more.  An interesting facet of Christ the King’s ministry is that the have geographic worship centers.  This seems like a natural outflow of the motivation behind the smaller home church gatherings.  I’m pondering the idea of meeting on a monthly or quarterly basis as a collective body to worship, fellowship and reach out.  I don’t think it has to be either/or, but a both/and. Or in some cases neither.  I might only get to be in an LTG with someone before they have to go home, but they are taking with them some resources to help them start churches once they get there!

Organic/House/Simple Church folks…stop being pissed off at the mainline churches around you.  Redeem what you think is wrong with them, use it to the benefit of the people in your movement and you may be surprised at the outcome.  It isn’t an us and them battle, we’re all in this together.  Just a side note: If you’ve got one house church going and it never grows and/or reproduces, you’re not healthy.  They have a name for groups like that, they are called cults.  God’s vision for your church is much larger than your living room. Expand your horizons.  Meet some more people.  Make some disciples, that is what you’re supposed to be doing anyway!

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.

Having just spent the better part of last week around 2800 people who aim to return to their home turf and plant churches, I have a lot of stuff swimming around in my head that I’m dealing with.  Prior to last week, I’ve kind of been quiet.  I’d not listened to too many podcasts, read too many Christian type books, surfed many blogs or really thought about what God sent us here to do.  I think that was good for my soul.

Having met and spent some time with some people who are really kicking some serious tail, I’ve got a fire in my belly.  I’m not ready to lay it all out here just yet, but hold on to your britches.  I’m really not a hyped up kind of guy.  There are really few things that make me get really excited — the kind of excited where you jump up and down and get all silly.  God’s been planting seeds in me for a couple of years…those seeds are about to sprout and that makes me excited.
So, all that said, I was doing a little blog reading today and my blogging friend, Ben Arment, had a great post about the difference between a church planter’s first and second church plant.  Now I know that I have never been a lead guy in a church plant, but I’ve done various things at various levels in several plants over the years, so I can feel where Ben is coming from.  The huge thing that Ben talked about was a shift in priorities.  I especially think that in the coming years, the shift from any one ‘church’ or denomination or network to the Church of Jesus Christ will be HUGE.  With declining numbers of people in pews, the economy tightening people’s budgets, and disinterest in organized religion, we are going to have to band together.  Things will have to change.  I’m not saying that God won’t still build his kingdom — that really is ultimately his job, he just invites us along for the ride– but we are commanded to go into all the earth and make disciples, so we should probably be doing that. You should head on over to Ben’s blog and check out what he has to say.  He is a great blogger, marketer and Starbucks fanatic.  I think he and Scott Hodge have kept Starbucks afloat while Howard was away.

(You know, it is funny, now that I have to drive at least 10 miles to get to a Starbucks, I want it daily.  I could drink an Venti-sugar-free-hazlenut-skinny-iced-latte pretty much any time of the day.  I’d much rather have something from a local joint, but alas House Blend is like 25 miles away.  Love you guys, but can’t make that trek for a latte! Wow, I’ll end the parenthetical sidebar now.)

Just was reading a blog by Pete Wilson, aka Without Wax. BTW, I love that name. Sine(without) cera(wax). Sincerely.

Pete blogged about a lecture given by N.T. Wright and during the Q and A one person asked N.T. what his view of the importance of the church was. His answer came straight out of Ephesians 2:10, which says, “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” I really like how N.T. put it, “we are God’s artwork created to dispense God’s grace and love to a watching world.”

Thanks, Pete and Bishop Wright. We all need those words daily.

edit: Link to Pete’s site was something else.  I should probably proofread.

The last week of my life has been pretty crazy.  I spent a lot of time hanging out with a great bunch of people, listened to a bunch of great music, looked a ton of places to live and ate a lot of stuff that was bad for me. I also got the pleasure of getting some sort of sinus problem.  That is a lot of fun on an airplane.

One of the things that I did was to take part in Humana 2.08. Humana is a leadership experience like no other.  It is basically an open source missional experience.   One of the discussions that I was able to take part in was actually a decompression from a talk earlier in the day.  Simply an open dialogue with people of opposing viewpoints converging into a practical conversation about how we “do” church.  I’ve just now (literally) ordered the DVD for the entire conference and cannot wait to get my grubby hands on it so I can partake in the entire experience.  I was challenged more by the few minutes I spent with these fine folks than I have been in awhile. I can also say that this day alone was worth the price of my entire trip. 

One of the ideas that  I came away with was the idea of structure (and have subsequently been wrestling with).  I think that  a large part of our western culture struggles with ideas and organizational models.  I think that it makes us uncomfortable when we aren’t exactly able to place a name on something and put it inside a nice little box.  Take a look at the churches that we form.  We have nice little names for everything, complete with descriptions of each little thing.  (On a side note, I think that with an formal organization of any substance or size, these are needed, so no flaming) Truthfully, one of the things that I have become uncomfortable with is the entire idea that everything has to have a certain order and structure.  When I started my church planting journey, my pastor showed me all of the stuff that he had compiled and categorized and honestly it made me sick.  It made me sick that I thought I had to do that same thing.  I’m not saying that it was bad that he did those things by any means, but the thought of me doing those things just didn’t sit well with me.  Another thing that never sat well with me was the idea of a church planter assessment.  I couldn’t really explain it at the time, but it really got under my skin.  I’m beginning to realize that it had a lot to do with the whole thought of being stuck inside a certain box, for better or for worse.  (Now, I’m not against assessments, I’m just against them for me…at least for now)

So what does this all mean?  It means that I honestly feel freedom.  Freedom from the structures that I have built up in my mind.  Freedom from the models and modes of ministry that have been ingrained into me for the past ten years.  Freedom to embrace who I actually am both as a Christ follower and as a person on mission.  I’m energized by hanging out with people who are looking to the future and engaging the culture in which they live in ways that are actually relevant.  (I’m not saying that everyone else is irrelevant, so please don’t take  it that way)  I’m excited about what the future holds for my family as we begin this crazy journey to the end of the world.  I’ve got more questions than answers, but what I’ve come to embrace that as a good thing.  The secret isn’t thinking outside the box, it is knowing that there isn’t a box.

 So, what are we going to do in Orlando?  We are going to live the lives that God has for us to live.  We are going to fight to make the world a better place to live.  We are going to connect as many people as possible to each other and to their Creator.  It won’t look like what you think it should look like.  It could be a music festival, it could be a gathering of people for a barbeque in the backyard.  It probably won’t look anything like a church and that is okay too.

I’m not anti-Church as the west knows it, I’m just convinced that there are ways of engaging people that aren’t inside of a building or around some structure.  I’m not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.  There is a harmonious balance that we must find.  We are on the same mission.

For those of you who have been supporting us with your words of encouragement, prayers and guidance…we are thankful for you.  Please continue to do so.