The Truth of God for a Lie

July 24th, 2008 View Comments

How many times have you chosen to serve or bow down to something or someone other than God?  How many times have you traded the good things of God for the garbage of this world?  I’ve gotta tell you, I’ve done it thousands, probably millions of times.

I’ve had this thought in my head for the last couple of months.  I’ve been playing back this one sentence from Romans 1 over and over.  When I’m thinking about all of the stresses of this life that are weighing on me like a ton of bricks, I think about the lies that are behind that stress.  I miss the beauty of the truth of God in the mess of life, when fact of the matter is that the truth of God is the beauty of the mess.  Often I talk with people who wonder why bad things happen to good people or why if God called them to do something then why are they struggling financially or physically or emotionally?  God never said it would be easy.  He never said it would be without trials.  In fact, he guarantees that there will be.  The truth of the matter is that in the face of those trials is where the beauty of God’s Kingdom is found.  I think about our own situation, our own mess.  I go back and forth in my mind with God about what He wants us to do here.  I struggle with trading the truth of God in the beauty of the mess for the lies that the world and those around me are telling me.  We knew coming in that it would be hard and I’m stepping it up big time.  I’m pressing on, I’m living in the beauty of the mess.  I reflected on this beauty the other day when I was on break at work.  I was sitting in a break room with a guy in a wheelchair who is from Haiti, a Chinese girl and a Puerto Rican girl and we were all talking to each other.  I glimpsed the Kingdom in that moment.

Exchanging the truth of God for a lie can look different for everyone.  It could be the porn addict exchanging the truth of God for the lie that the woman/man on the computer screen wants them.  It could be the work-a-holic that trades his family for cash.  It could be the school kid who cheats on the exam.

For me, it is the things of my past that I exchange for the truth of God.  I’m letting go.  I’m trading in the lies for the Truth.  Going back into the beauty of the Truth.

Where Does Discipleship Happen?

July 3rd, 2008 View Comments

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.

Quotable Quotes

June 27th, 2008 View Comments

“…if we restrict our discipleship to special religious times, the majority of our waking hours will be isolated from the manifest presence of the kingdom in our lives”.  Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy

5 (no 6) posts in one day?

May 30th, 2008 View Comments

It is pretty crazy that I just cranked out 5, now 6 posts in one single day!  God has been building all of that stuff in me and it is time that I let it all out.

Sorry that I dumped it all on you at once…I could have used time delay, but frankly I couldn’t wait to get all that out!

Thanks for reading!

The Downfall of the Organic Church

May 30th, 2008 View Comments

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!

The Organic Church

May 30th, 2008 View Comments

As far as church planting goes, I have seen many different models and makes.  I’ve been to conferences and taken part in various things online that are proponents of one model over another.  I’m not saying that one is right or one is wrong, but one thing that I have learned is that there are two very important elements that need to be in place for ‘effective’ church planting.

  1. The model or methodology has to be unique to the person or persons doing the work.  While I am perfectly capable of launching an all out balls to the walls church plant that looks and feels like 87% of the other church plants that will launch this year, I would be living a lie.  I’m not any of those guys and that type of church planting just doesn’t fit who God has designed me to be.
  2. The model or methodology must work in the community in which the church is to be planted.  I said to my former pastor that what we intended to do just would not work in Rochester, MN.  I wasn’t even sure what that meant at the time, but now I see a glimpse of what it meant.

Given these two things that must be true for an ‘effective’ church plant, I’ll now talk a bit about the extended vision for what it is that we are doing here.

Simple Church, Organic Church, House Church, Cell Church, Neighborhood Church…all those are terms used to describe what God has called us here to do.  The Life Transformation Groups are, as I see them, foundational to building larger gatherings of 12-15 people in homes, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, theme parks, resorts etc.  These gatherings are churches.  They function much like a family, sharing meals, sharing struggles, serving together, worshiping together.  I envision a network of these churches that reaches across the city, beginning with us in our own neighborhood.  As I see it, this is truly the representation of what went on with the First Century followers of Jesus.

The Portability of the Organic Church

One of the unique things about the Orlando area is that it is very transient.  People come here from all over the world to work for Disney or Lockheed (to name a couple), they also come here to study or to search out life.  One of the huge areas of opportunity for people like us is with Disney Interns.  Typically they come here for 6 months, away from their friends and family for most major holidays.  When their time is through they usually go home.  What if we were able to equip them to be church planters before they left?  Using LTG groups and an organic church model, these folks could very well transplant the church from Orlando to King of Prussia, PA or Beijing, China or Oslo, Norway.

The thought that in as little as a few months, we could be planting churches all across the world simply blows my mind.  I’ve been burdened with this town and this people group (Disney is the largest single site employer in the country with about 60,000 employees…talk about a mission field!) and I’m excited about the possibilities that are ahead of us.

You may be asking yourself if we have gone insane.  Possibly.  In reality, the idea of Organic Church simply fits us.  We’re more grassrootsy than glitz and glammy.  We’re more about relationships and people than structures and systems.

As I said before, I’m not trying to make my case as to why the Organic Church is THE method of church planting.  I don’t think there is one right or wrong way of being the church.  I’m not bashing anyone, just laying it out for you to play it out.

Next time — I’ll give the Organic/Simple/House Church guys and gals something to chew on.

The Simple Way Part II

May 30th, 2008 View Comments

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.

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