What are you preaching?

Our church’s growth plan

I’ve had a few discussions via comments with others about a dream I had when I was in seminary in New Orleans about how to build an association of churches planted for the purpose of reaching that city. I thought that you might be interested to understand how our church is laying the foundation to grow.

We are choosing to grow through multiplication and replication rather than getting bigger.

First, let me give you our church’s context. We’re in the second fastest growing area of the 8th fastest growing state in the country. There are literally 5000+ homes in a 5 mile radius of the center of time approved for development. One development alone will have 2,500 homes.

The dream for Mission Fellowship here in Middletown, DE is to grow to a large enough size that we can take 50-75 members and plant another church in the area. That church will meet in a storefront or other rented facility and hopefully will continue to associate with our church. As that church grew and we replentished our own numbers, together the mother church and the new church would plant another church by drawing off 25-30 people from each church as well as receiving funds from both churches to begin the plant, again in a rented facility. This process would continue until at some point it becomes unfeasable to continue the process.

What we end up doing is taking the church into the community. It will be difficult for us to purchase land and it may be difficult to find a facility that will allow us to grow into a mega-church. But we can build an association of churches in the area that will work together to reach this community and ultimately the world.

Deep Calls to Deep

I resigned from the first church I pastored without anywhere to go. It was a difficult church - and I learned later, it was known for being a difficult church even though it was less than 10 years old. To provide for my family, I fell back on my undergrad work and began working in an internet start-up. Seven years, three internet start-ups and a Microsoft certification later, along with some PhD classes in organizational and mass communications, God opened a door to again pastor a young mission church in Delaware. One year later, we’ve accomplished a lot organizationally and foundationally.

In my first pastorate, and in seminary and college, I read deep stuff. I translated the passage that I was preaching for the week. I sat around with people discussing the whether or not part of Ephesians was a hymn inserted by Paul. I loved it. My girlfriend in seminary, who later became my wife, called me a nerd because I was so into the deep things.

Spending all that time with young, immature christians in churches and pagans in the marketplace, I lost that edge. Preparing myself for ministry, should that arise again was my goal while I wasn’t in full-time ministry, so I read the pragmatic stuff. Pastoring again, I have spent more time on how to make something practical and applicable to the people’s lives, more so than taking them into the depths of scripture.

It’s time to make a change, however. Deep is calling back to deep. I have to say that this is very intriguing to me.

It’s amazing to see the necessity of the theological underpinnings within a person’s life. A person can only go so long without depth. There is such a need for myself to dig deep, to struggle through the issues, and it cannot be avoided. What I worry about is the pendelum swinging the opposite way, that it becomes extreme doctrine and theology, without the practical application.

And I see our people needing it, and longing for it, whether they know it or not. And it’s changing my approach, my thought process, my own personal longings. I have an idea as to what we are going to do, and I am looking forward to the people responding to it. The church will only go as deep as I teach them, and it’s time to go deep.

Deep is calling to deep! And I’m diving in.

What work needs to be done in our community to announce the kingdom has come? Pt. 1

Joe Thorn posed a question at the end of an article entitled Missional Proclamation that all of us need to hear:

The question every church ought to be asking itself is, “What work needs to be done in our community to announce the kingdom has come?� Answering that question and responding to it appropriately prove to be the hardest part of this dialogue.

I want to work through this question using the Beattitudes as the basis of my conversation, specifically, the latter half the beatitudes. The beatitudes speak of what the normal Christian should look like. It’s not a call to be a super Christian, but characterizes a person who has entered the kingdom. The early part of the beatitudes talk about the inward character of a christian while the latter speak of the outward expression and witness of the believer.

We’ll look first at the fourth Beatitude: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied (NAS)”.

In the Bible, righteousness has at least three meanings: legal, moral, and social.

Legal righteousness is justification, or a right relationship with God, or maybe a more understandable way to put it is salvation. When this meaning is applied to Matthew 5:6, it doesn’t fit. Jesus addressed the issue of entrance into the kingdom of heaven in the first beatitude: blessed are the poor in spirit…

Another meaning is the righteousness of character and conduct which pleases God. Jesus will go on after the beatitudes to contrast Christian righteousness with the righteousness of the Pharisees. Pharisaic righteousness concerned the keeping of rules. Christian righteousness is an inner righteousness of heart, mind and motive.

The third meaning is that of social righteousness. Christian righteousness is more than a private and personal affair. It has social consequences and a social call, such as dealing with issues of homelessness, poverty, AIDS, genocide, etc.

When Jesus speaks of “hungering and thirsting for righteousness”, he calls us to desperately pursue freedom from the impact of sin on our own lives and the lives of society. It’s a desire to be free from sin. It’s a desire for the impact of sin to be removed from our world.

Impact of sin on us personally
We all understand the presence of the evil whether or not we believe in God or not, or accept a moral standard or not. We all believe in right and wrong, despite the fact that what’s right for you is not for me.

Jesus’ death on a cross happened that the power sin has on us would be broken. Just like Hosea bought back Gomer in Hosea 3, God bought us back by heaping all the sin past, present and future onto Jesus. It cost Jesus his life to buy us back.

But the influence of sin and evil on our lives has not been eradicated. It is not completely gone. It still affects us. And we are like Gomer. God draws us to himself but the corruptible sin nature in our life draws us away from him and we are all like that prostitute – married to one and loved by one, but rejecting the unconditional love for the pleasure of the moment. Whether it is anger that leads to murder or lust that leads to sexual sin or jealousy or pride or stealing, we exchange our friendship and relationship with God for a moment of personal pleasure.

Sin impacts culture as much as it impacts the person.
In the first two chapters of Amos, God pronounces judgment on Israel – the northern tribes of the divided kingdom - , Judah – the southern 2 tribes – and six other nations that surrounded them. Listen to why God brought judgment on them:

1. Damascus - ripping the bodies of Gilead like wheat. Murder and the devaluing of man.
2. Gaza - using people as objects of trade and commerce.
3. Tyre - Slave trading.
4. Edom - Hostile action against his family
5. Ammon - Killing the unborn for money, territory, and to wipe out their enemies, i.e. killing as a means of birth control.
6. Moab - Desecration of the dead, treating people as worthless objects.
7. Judah - Disobeying the commands of the Lord.
8. Israel - Social injustice where officials were taking brides, where people were sold into slavery and the poor and powerless were considered worthless.

If you notice the majority of them are social issues. Life had no value for the wrong people.

When Jesus was on the earth who did he attend to most often? The poor, needy, sick, and hurting. Jesus had a fond affinity towards those oppressed, especially those oppressed by religion as well as those with physical, financial, and relational needs. Jesus was greatly concerned with socioeconomics.

In Matthew 25, Jesus made a very clear statement about who would enter into the kingdom of heaven. Listen:

31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 “All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 ‘For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 ‘And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 ‘When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 “The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 “Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ 45 “Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ 46 “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

In this passage, the people are separated based on their ministry to those who don’t have a voice and those who were in need, either relationally or physically. Here is what that doesn’t mean. It doesn’t teach salvation by doing good things. What it does say is that if you are a believer in Christ and you claim Christ as savior and Lord this will be evidenced as you reach out to those in need, who do not have a voice, who are hurting, and being run through the ringer because of their socioeconomic status.

So the church needs to speak out. We need to seek to speak up and be advocates for those who live without homes, without food and without basic human rights. We need to fight for civil rights – everyone deserves to be treated as humans, regardless of our agreement with their lifestyle, education, political affiliation or sexual orientation. We should make sure people are treated with value and worth and shown love. We need to fight for the unborn. We need to fight for those who are getting hurt by the legal system. We need to speak up for those who are abused.

Why? Because of the impact sin has on our society and culture. It turns people away from love and towards selfishness and away from grace and towards retribution.

Christians need to seek man’s liberation from oppression, promote civil rights, just in the court system, integrity in business dealings and honor in home and family. We are not to crawl into a corner in run into the desert, but to run out and offer your hands and feet, even our life. (JRW Stott)

The church has for far too long been silent on this and it is time we view again Jesus’ life and message.

The Impact
She was born in 1910 into a wealthy family. Her name was Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu. In 1928, she joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Lareto, a Catholic order that did charity work in India. In 1950 she founded the Missionaries of Charity, a new order devoted to helping the sick and poor. And for the rest of her life, Agnes, the lady we know as Mother Teresa, loved and ministered to the poor of India. And we all know the legacy of this dear woman of God.

Mother Teresa spoke once in a Harvard Chapel service. Here’s a recounting of her speech by a man named Tony Campolo:

She didn’t pull any punches. At one point she said, “I understand there are lots of you students in this school who are doing things that displease God. You are harming yourselves and offending God. Some of you are drinking alcohol and taking drugs. Others of you are engaged in sexual sin of many sorts. I have a message for you from God: Repent, turn away from what you are doing.”

The result of Mother Teresa’s exhortation was amazing. The entire auditorium full of people rose to their feet and applauded thunderously for several minutes. They gave this simple woman a standing ovation for calling them to repentance! (Sjogren, Steve, Conspiracy of Kindness, p. 114)

If the words she had spoken were spoken at Liberty University or a Catholic college or the seminary I went to, I would not be shocked at the response Mother Teresa received. But Harvard is not a bastion of conservative ideology, even in its divinity school.

Here’s the point: She was heard and listened to because she had credibility. She had credibility because she embodied the message of Christ in regards to social issues. She was heard and received for her orthodoxy – her theology – because she lived it out in practice, including the call to social justice. Not a social gospel, but a gospel that has social implications.

Application
Part of the work that needs to be done by churches to announce the kingdom is at hand is to be strategic and intentional about how they minister to the needs of the community and the world. We have to be socially active. We need to not simply preach about helping the poor, or loving people with HIV or ministering to the homosexual community, but demonstrate it in the community. We need to be a part of raising support for those overseas who are dying from starvation and being killed by disease. We also need to work with community leaders and business leaders to help build support for this type of work.

It is not by accident that people would applaud the work of Mother Teresa. Think what you will about Rick Warren and his PDL, but he is gaining strong support, across religious and political lines, for his PEACE initiative, and when he speaks, people are listening.

The way I see it, Jesus came announcing the kingdom and one way he did it was to touch those the establishment had written off: lepers, poor, sick, sinful, etc.

Could we not begin to announce the kingdom the same way?