Joanne and I are going to be grandparents...for the second time! Due date, May. As most grandparents will testify, receiving such good news never gets old. We are excited and thankful!
That's how life is suppose to work: families building families with gratefulness--- made even stronger when being built on the rock of Jesus! When that's the case, no matter how tough life might get for a family, there is reason for hope. With hope, there is gratefulness that gives thanks to God who births new life in Christ!
'Tis true for church families as well. When churches birth new churches in gratefulness of Christ's redeeming work, a family tree is being formed and the possibility of more people being reached for Christ grows dramatically. So, what might slow this process down, or even keep churches from birthing new churches in the first place?
Let's first learn to recognize some road blocks, so we can then learn to remedy...
Recognize...the paradigm that a church is a building. Everyone agrees that it's not, yet over-and-over I hear otherwise through articulated perceptions. I'll never forget having lunch with a fellow Lutheran pastor who mocked the fact that my church plant offices were in a strip mall. To him, it wasn't church. (To me, however, it was was like the first-century church in the marketplace--- exactly where God's people are to practice Christian faith!). Just the other day I received an email from a person living on the east coast who wanted to start a church by first purchasing an abandoned church facility. He added, "There is some work to be done (on the facility) before it can be a church again." Remedy...I shared that he indeed had some work to be done--- but it was to be on building values, mission and vision for the purpose-development of a new congregation in his city--- way before thinking about buying a building.
Recognize...the fear of running out of money. Rich people are always afraid they'll lose their money and poor people are always afraid they won't have any. Fear grips both the rich and the poor with a scarcity mindset. The same can be true for congregations. Congregations don't have a money shortage...they have a vision shortage! Remedy...developing faith triggers a Godly vision of discipleship. A vision of discipleship ignites purpose. Purpose leads the way to mission, and money will follow a clearly stated mission! Too many existing churches think that if they invest in the start of a new church, they themselves might fall financially short. Yet in Malachi 3, God says go ahead and test His ability to pour out more and more upon a mission that is focused on others! When we learn to die to ourselves, a Good Friday will always lead to a Resurrection Day!
Recognize...the concern of losing members. I once asked a very large church if it would share with me the names of 12 people in it's congregation that I might contact about serving as a launch team in starting a new church in a near-by community. The response back was basically, "We can't do that because it might hurt our newest satellite start." Make sense? It does, except the satellite was already over a 1,000 people in a 3-million person area! Remedy...if a church is raising up leaders, it can easily send them into new missional opportunities. Nothing is hurt, only helped! If, however, a church is simply looking to gain membership numbers--- it becomes a stagnate religious club. How about this: instead of always going after the 40% of people that are already "mildly Christian," let's have churches develop churches that directly aim for the 60% of people that have no Christian connection what-so-ever. To do this, of course, means developing planters and launch teams that are not going to look like a typical church. Instead, they are going to bring the gospel to new people groups in new, sometimes unconventional ways. This shifts concern away from the mentality of losing members in a church, to concern about losing souls in a city!
Recognize...compelling competition. When churches fail to recognize the marketplace of their city as "one congregation with many church-tribes," we create a church vs. church competition mentality. As I mentioned before, that's when every church does the same things looking to attract the same people--- and only 40% of a community is reached! Remedy...when Jesus tells us to be fishers of people, he doesn't mean swapping fish between aquariums. He wants us to catch new people for the kingdom! That's why in John 17, we hear Jesus and the Father connecting in prayer. Jesus is asking that we all be ONE in the Trinity, so that unbelievers might come to see the church as ONE BODY IN CHRIST for the sake of a city. Competition for people is not to be with other churches, but against the enemy of darkness. So, let's go after him...together!
Friends: The very best way for new LCMC churches to be birthed, is when existing LCMC churches gratefully come together as healthy parents and thankfully BIRTH kid congregations! In doing so, we develop a legacy of the gospel that lives on, and branches out to reach new people groups, in a magnificent family tree of God's hope for the world!
Happy Thanksgiving!
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