Success is tied to our Legacy

I want to state right up front that this is a personal post. I also want to state that this may be considered an illustration of a previous post where I discussed success as investment. Now that the disclaimers are out of the way, let’s get busy.

Last Thursday (June 4, 2009) I turned 40 years old. On Sunday, my wife surprised me with a party for both my birthday and graduation with my doctorate. There were about 35 people there. It was a blast and I was truly overwhelmed by her actions and the turnout.

The husband of one family who came was on the pastor search team that brought me here to Delaware five years ago. He was a difficult guy to read during those initial phone conversations. I remember during one conversation, he asked a hypothetical question that I was able to talk my way through, though I’m not sure it made any sense. When he asked the question, I could hear on the other end of the line phrases such as, “What?” and “Are you serious?”. We all got a good laugh after my answer when another member asked him what he was thinking by asking such an odd question. His response was “I don’t know, I just made it up!” He is the supreme jokester and we had a lot of fun together with he and his family. Unfortunately, less than a year after I arrived, they had to move due to a job change. While they only moved an hour away, it was just too far to drive to be a part of our community of faith.

In the five years I have been in Delaware, we have had to say goodbye to a lot of people because of transitions in the marketplace. In fact, if my calculations are correct, we have sent almost 100 missionaries in the past five years. When I got here we had less than 80 people. (Please don’t do the math…If you’re a numbers person, it’s not pretty).

Because he and his family arrived late for the party, they ended up staying after everyone else had left and we got a chance to talk. It was the first time we had been together in over four years, but you would never know it.

I asked the family how they were enjoying the church they were attending. I know the pastor there and he’s a great guy. I mentioned something about the building during our conversation and he told me they had two large parcels of land and were trying to figure which parcel of land to build on. The church was going to build a large new campus. He said (and I’m paraphrasing), “I don’t know why they want to do that. They want to build up. We should be building wide, like you were talking about when you came here.” He and his family are waiting for the opportunity to help plant a church in their own area. In fact, he has stopped going to meetings where decisions are being made because he’s frustrated that the church wants to buy land or build big buildings. I sat there stunned that a man whom I had roughly one year to invest in was still trumpeting my words and mission four years later.

After they left, I came into my office and downloaded Nicole Nordeman’s song Legacy (album: Recollection: The Best of Nichole Nordeman) off of iTunes. I searched Youtube to see if the video was there. And I sat down with my wife and we talked about what he had said. And we started listing all the people who had moved to another part of the country or world, or who was still in the area but involved in a church plant. In most every case, the last update we heard from those missionaries were that they were investing themselves in ministry to church plants, small churches, or were pushing their churches to start churches. We sent out our first church planter one year after we came. He was a 73 year old retired Asian pastor who had been in our church less than a year and was compelled, according to him, to help start an Asian church out near the University of Delaware through our weekly discussions and the prompting of God (which is far more important). He and his wife are still involved in that plant four years later. Another family moved away in 2006. They joined a small church intending to planting churches as well as wanting to their skills, gifts and talents to serve, love, and invest in their community. They were intentional in that. I could tell story after story of people who were sent out with that mindset.

We need to consider our legacy as we minister, realizing all of us are ministers. How was Jesus known after the resurrection? Through those in whom he had invested himself. They were a reflection of Jesus, “little Christ’s”. The legacy of Jesus was not found in the masses but in the individuals AND the communities of faith that reflected a deep investment by Jesus and His Spirit. Jesus’ legacy is not found in the masses. It was found in the reflections. Your legacy is not found in the masses, but in those who reflect your life. We all need to realize that while we teach what we know, we reproduce who we are. Those in whom you invest will reflect who you are. That is a sobering thought.

We have not seen the masses come to Christ while we have been in Delaware. We have baptized 13 these past five years and led a few more to Christ that we didn’t baptize. My legacy will not be that I led a thriving, bustling, busy and large church. My legacy will be that since I arrived five years ago, we have sent out people seeking to make investments in the lives of others through church planting and church multiplication as well as living the Gospel as a message of wholeness, ministering to the whole person through investment, not just seeing them get out of hell and into heaven or coming to our particular church. (The irony: I’m not a church planter but I have a passion to see the church multiply, not grow big.) My legacy will be found in the people I invested in, not in the numbers I obtained, which really aren’t mine anyway.

I’ve listened to Legacy (album: Recollection: The Best of Nichole Nordeman) several times since Sunday night.  I’ve wept each time. The reason: at least one family in whom I invested a short period of my life in still lives that investment four years later. That never, ever gets old!

Lest you don’t know the song I speak of, here are the words:

I don’t mind if you’ve got something nice to say about me
And I enjoy an accolade like the rest
You could take my picture and hang it in a gallery
Of all the who’s who and so-n-so’s that used to be the best
At such ‘n such…it wouldn’t matter much

I won’t lie, it feels alright to see your name in lights
We all need an “Atta boy” or “Atta girl”
But in the end I’d like to hang my hat on more besides
the temporary trappings of this world

Chorus:
I want to leave a legacy
How will they remember me?
Did I choose to love?
Did I point to you enough to make a mark on things?
I want to leave an offering
A child of mercy and grace who blessed Your name unapologetically
And leave that kind of legacy

I don’t have to look too far or too long awhile
To make a lengthy list of all that I enjoy
It’s an accumulating trinket and a treasure pile
Where moth and rust, thieves and such will soon enough destroy

Chorus

Not well traveled, not well read, not well-to-do or well bred
Just want to hear instead, “Well done” good and faithful one

And the video:

Reframing Succes: Success in Our Evangelism

Sadly, people are treated like projects, not meaningful, long-term relationships

Margaret Fienberg tells the story of her best friend in high school. Her friend was Jewish.  They truly enjoyed being around each other and had only one issue that created tension between them – the Messiah-ship of Jesus.  Margaret believed he was the Messiah.  Her friend did not.  Margaret confesses that during this time, “Though I didn’t talk to her about God, I did talk to God about her.  A lot.  More than anything, I wanted my best friend to know Jesus.” (1)

One semester, Feinberg believed her prayers had been answered when her friend began coming to her youth group meetings on Sunday evenings.  Though a lot of talk and discussion occurred, her friend decided to maintain her Jewish beliefs.  A crevice occurred in their relationship.  And it only grew wider.

Fienberg recounts a phone conversation between the two one evening:

I remember one evening she called me to talk about our different beliefs. She pointedly asked me what I believed would happen to her if she died without choosing to follow Jesus.  I dodged the question, but she persisted.  So I finally told her what I thought, and I can still remember the deafening silence.  In that moment, she uncovered the naked truth of my heart:  I was more concerned about her eternal destiny than I was about her.  When she finally spoke, she asked me to stop trying to convince, convert, or coax her into believing something different. (2)

Because of this conversation, their relationship began to fade.  Though they have spent time together since then, the friendship is not the same.  And it may never be.  Margaret, reflecting back over that time, shares:

I care for her deeply and pray for her more than she will ever know, but looking back, I realize that she was right – my motives were mixed and complex.  I wanted her to become a Christian more for me than for her.  I wanted her to have what I had, whatever the cost.  My agenda became more important than our relationship, and I became more concerned with my own righteousness than with her redemption.  The salvation I was offering her was centered on myself – making her believe what I did – rather than having her believe God. (3)

This story has haunted me, as it still does her.  I have thought about the times when the sole purpose for my eating at a restaurant or going to a business or building a relationship was to be involved in seeing a person or persons engage Jesus in a relationship.  I have spent lots of time and money specifically targeting people.  And the question I have to ask myself now is this:  would I hang out with those people if my purpose didn’t involve leading them to Christ? Were they easy and convenient or did I truly care for them as people, not as a project?

I grew up in a denomination that prided itself on evangelism.  We were the soul winners!  We were going door to door with our handy presentations trying to argue people into believing what we believe.  We were developing one program or plan after another.  Some of these were and still are theologically questionable.  But the whole goal was to get them to a point to profess an intellectual belief in Christ. That way, we could mark them on a report, drag them into a baptismal pool, and proclaim that we had helped people experience a relationship with God through Jesus. Unfortunately, I truly believe we have failed. We have caused people to think they have a relationship with God, but all we may have really done is given them a false sense of security.

In 2008, I was looking through the roster of people who were going to be voted on as leaders at our denomination’s general meeting that year.  The statistics of one pastor’s church were amazing.  Over the past ten years they had averaged 140 baptisms per year under this particular pastor’s leadership. In that same time frame, attendance grew from 700 to 1,100. (4)  I sat speechless.  Over ten years they have averaged 140 people baptized per year.  140 x 10 = 1,400.  Do you see the problem?  Where are the 1,000 people who are not at church now?  If you would accept the possibility that there was zero transfer growth that means that only forty of the one hundred forty that they did baptize were still regular attenders in that church.  One hundred are not consistently involved in that church. That is a retention rate of less than thirty percent. The question must be asked if the 1,000 people who are no longer participating in that church’s worship gatherings really have a relationship with God through Jesus.

Despite this incredibly low retention rate, however, this pastor is considered a success and his church is considered a successful church because of the 1,400 people they baptized over a ten year period. We have created an environment where success is getting people into the baptismal pool.

I have said in a previous post that what is celebrated is measured, and what is measured determines success.  In my tribe, success is found in how many people a church has baptized.  It is found in how many people are members.

Our attempts at evangelism have become attempts to make us look good and to make us feel good through the use of numbers.  It is ruining our churches and creating environments where those who toil and labor in smaller venues struggle. They feel that they are standing before God as failures.

Evangelism has become a matter of productivity.

We all want to get the most done in the least amount of time.  The more we get done, the better we feel about ourselves.  It makes us feel great to accomplish tasks.  What is even easier, is when we can accomplish those tasks with minimal effort.  The less effort we have to put into something, the less time it takes and the more we can get done.  Evangelism has become a matter of productivity for our cultural Christianity.

Think of all the plans that exist for sharing the Gospel.  The Romans Road has five verses.  The Southern Baptist Convention’s F.A.I.T.H. plan is also five verses.  You have the colored beads plan, made up of five colored beads.  You have Evangelism Explosion, which back in the day was made up of four points.  Then there is Bill Bright’s Four Spiritual Laws.

So we are sent out with these nice packaged plans that we are to memorize.  But they do not help us deal with one thing:  we were never taught to do apologetics (among a lot of things we are not taught).  These plans were supposed to get you in and get you out of a spiritual conversation.  If people didn’t accept Jesus, then move on.  The goal is to share the message and if they don’t accept he message, shake the dust off your feet and go to the next house.

It’s easier to pick low hanging fruit than the work the soil.  But if we don’t work the soil, there can be no fruit trees planted.

The parable of the soil in Matthew 13 has as many different understandings as translations of the Bible it seems.  So while I do not wish to spend time on the interpretation, I do want to make what appear to be obvious statements about the passage:

“Listen! A farmer went out to plant some seeds. 4 As he scattered them across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. 5 Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The seeds sprouted quickly because the soil was shallow. 6 But the plants soon wilted under the hot sun, and since they didn’t have deep roots, they died. 7 Other seeds fell among thorns that grew up and choked out the tender plants. 8 Still other seeds fell on fertile soil, and they produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted! (Matthew 13:3b-8, NLT)

The one thing that strikes me as being more important to the productivity of the seeds is the quality of the soil.  It is obvious whether we are trying to interpret this passage or grow tomatoes that the soil makes the difference.  The seeds do not take root and bear fruit until they find good soil.  Whatever else Jesus is saying here, He is making a direct observation about the need to work the soil so that it is productive.  Hard soil must be broken up.  Rocky and overgrown soil must be cleaned out.  Shallow soil must be properly built up.  Of course Jesus could also be making another point, one of even greater importance.  Do not plant the seeds in soil that is not ready for it.

If that last statement is true, we have a determination to make.  We have to determine if the soil is ready for the seed of the Gospel.  How do we do that with a hit and run, share and move on experience?  It seems to me that if we are going to make a soil determination, we have to know the soil, examine the soil, and spend time with the soil.  If the soil is not ready for seed, do we still try to plant the seed anyway?  Or do we work the soil until it can handle the seed? In other words, are we just broadcasting the seed with no regard to the heart of the hearer or are we developing the relationships with people because we love them and want to be around them?  Then if the soil becomes ready, we make the effort to plant the seed when the time is appropriate and God opens the opportunity.

Evangelism must be a love relationship, not a project

Evangelism requires an investment in the lives of people. Success in evangelism is in doing your part to develop the soil so that the seed of the gospel is ready for planting, not a drive-by sharing of the Gospel. I Corinthians 3: 5-9 reminds of how Paul viewed success in evangelism:

What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building. (NIV)

For each person that comes into your life you have a responsibility to simply do the task assigned to you by God. Again, this is a matter of obedience, not a matter of seeing conversions or a matter of presenting some plan of salvation. Success for you may be simply preparing the soil, creating a true picture of Jesus and the transformative change and perfect love He brings in to a person’s life. Some people are more oriented to soil development while some are more oriented to picking the fruit. For some relationships you may be the fruit picker and for another you develop the soil or water the seeds. Success in evangelism is fulfilling your role in the life cycle of the person’s life. Success in not presenting the gospel message to every one you know through a canned presentation, often attempting to guilt them into a decision. This requires us to be in tune with the Holy Spirit, depending on Him to help us see our role and to see and take advantage of the opportunities presented to us.

Paul wept for those who did not have a relationship with Jesus. But he also knew his role in the lives of those he met.

The danger of numbers and evangelism as indicators of success

Success in a church is not seeing thousands get baptized. It is not a numbers game, and failure to let that go creates an environment where we view ourselves as failures when we may be successful in God’s formula. All this talk of numbers is an attempt to take on the role of the Holy Spirit and convict people to present a presentation and get people into a baptistery.

It is true that over 3,000 men became Christ-followers at Pentecost. Many more became Christ-followers along the way, but in the 60 years following, the estimates about the total number of Christians in the Roman Empire range from 7,535 (5) to 50,000 (6) at the end of the first century. Sociologist Rodney Stark estimates that Christians first passed the 100,000 mark around 180 a.d., 160 years or so after Pentecost. (7) That means that Christianity had a net growth each year of 625, going from 0 to 100,000 in 160 years. By our current standards, the early, first century church was a complete failure.

However, the soil was being developed. Those early Christ-followers laid did the hard work of soil development, creating an environment for a movement start. They had no plan of salvation, no revivals, no Christian movies or them parks or global media. They simply loved God with all their heart and loved those they came in contact with the same way, serving them through the love of Christ. The result was that by 350 a.d., there were over 33 million true Christians. They went from .36% of the population of the Roman empire to over 50%. (8)

Were the Christians who lived from 200-350 more successful than those from the first 160 years of Christianity? No. Each one did their part.

Success in evangelism is not seeing a lot of people baptized. It is being obedient to task laid out for you by God for each person as they journey toward a deeper relationship with God.

Notes —

1 The Organic God, 45.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid, 46.
4. Ed Litton to be Pastors’ Conf. nominee, http://baptistpress.com/bpnews.asp?id=28044 Accessed June 4, 2008
5. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History by Rodney Stark, 9.
6. The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius by Paul Trebilco, 592, note 10.
7. Stark, 9.
8. Ibid, 9-10.

The new Missional Ministry Metrics

It is His Church, Not Mine
In college, I was a huge Steve Camp fan.  In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s he wrote and recorded some of the most challenging music the church has ever heard.  Well, let me say that I do not know how much of it the church actually heard, but it was played on Christian radio stations across the country. He called the church to wake up and realize that the gospel we believe was neither easy nor cheap.  It requires us to examine our lives, to minister to the outcast, and love the unlovable.  I attended a few of his concerts during that period of time. I was even a “counselor” at one of them. I also had almost all his albums.  My iPod is filled with his music.

One morning during my daily worship time with God a couple of years ago, a phrase popped into my head from one of Steve’s songs.  At least I thought it was one of his songs. The phrase was, “Lest the Lord build this house, oh, we labor in vain”.  I googled that phrase to see if I could uncover the song. What I wasn’t prepared for was the journey that search would take me on, the scriptures I would uncover, and the reminder God would give me that day.  I never did find the name of that song, but I began a journey that has impacted my ministry and understanding of church forever.

The phrase that I googled turned out to be the first verse of Ps. 127.  In the ESV version, the psalm is:

1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the LORD watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest,
eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.
3 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

What lept from my browser was verse one, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” It was the phrase I has searched for but I had thought it was part of a song about raising up children. The context I found it in through this Psalm transformed my understanding. It is not your house. It is God’s house. Anything He does not build is a failed labor.

From there, my mind moved immediately to the first chapter of Mark. In verse 16, Jesus begins calling his disciples. He approaches Peter and Andrew with the invitation to “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”  The causative nature of the verb renders the meaning “I will cause you to become.”  The call that Jesus issued was to simply follow him.  He would work in their lives to cause them to be conformed to his image and plan.

Then, my mind immediately ran to Matthew 16.  Jesus is having a discussion with his disciples about who people think he is.  In the course of that discussion Peter loudly proclaims that Jesus was the Christ, the son of the living God.  Jesus responds,
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”  (Matthew 14:17b-19, emphasis mine) Jesus reminded me that morning that He will build His church.  The church that He builds will march forward and challenge the gates of hell.  In fact, hell cannot withstand the movement of the church that God builds.

It’s Not Your Church
I can’t tell you how many times someone has asked me, “How’s your church doing?”  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say, “Pastor so and so has built a great church in…” or “This pastor is doing incredible things at _______ church”.  I just cringe.  What I hope they are saying is that this pastor is seeking God and letting God provide him with direction and action and he is being obedient to what God is directing him to do.  That’s what I hope people are saying.  I have to admit that I’m not sure that is not the true intention, but I will try to give them the benefit of the doubt.

The truth of the scripture is that the church I pastor is not my church.  It never has and it never will be.  If it does become my church, then I have elevated myself as the builder, a role only reserved for the Godhead.  It is not my role. It is not your role. If the church I pastor becomes the church I build then I have labored in vain.  It is a worthless construction.  In fact, if we build a church based on personality, methodology or anything else, we have built a church that is a weak, self-focused, and lacking the right foundation. It will not last. It is not a church Jesus would build.

Neil Cole helped solidify this understanding for me in his book,Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens.  Early in the book he reminds us that Jesus bought the church with his own blood (Acts 20:28).  He says, “The church is Jesus’ building project, and He fully intends to live in it.  If Jesus is at work building His church, it will be beautiful and solid.  He doesn’t do sloppy work.” (1)

The church should be growing.  When something is built, it does get bigger.  It also gets more structurally sound as the pieces interact to create support for the whole building. If one of the systems of an organism does not work properly, it will diminish the ability of the entire organism to function effectively and properly. Ask anyone with a knee injury how the rest of their body was impacted by one joint being damaged. The church will grow as people surrender more of themselves to Jesus and as people are introduced to Jesus through His movement in their lives.

However, this does not necessarily mean that the local church will keep getting bigger  or even that it should continue to get larger. In fact,  “[m]ost warm-blooded living things grow to a point and then reproduce.  This is how the body of Christ is to grow.  The huge mega churches of this past century will be looked upon as an anomaly, not the norm, of our time in history.” (2)

I build nothing.  But I do have a role.
I love the calling of the disciples.  The world would cast these rather insignificant fellows aside.  There is no way these men would have made much of a name for themselves other than through the calling of Jesus.  Nevertheless, Jesus saw something in these men and he sought them out to follow him.  He would be their teacher and they would be his disciples.  Therefore, they freed up their calendars for the next few years and joined up.  It beat fishing every day of their life.  Maybe it would bring a little excitement to their lives.

When Jesus issued the call in Mark, he made them a promise.  “If you will just follow me,” he said, “I’ll see to it that your lives are changed.”  Notice who brought the change: Jesus  It was not their responsibility to be make themselves fishers of men.  It was Jesus’ responsibility.  The disciple’s responsibility (and thus the same for the pastor, minister, and Christian in general) was to simply follow and be obedient.

Our roles as pastors or staff or even just Christ followers within the church are defined by this calling.  Our responsibility is not to see a large building built or even an abundance of ministries.  Our role is to be obedient to the task God places in our lives.  Size matters only for the consumerist among us.

It is also our role as Christians to help others to follow and be obedient to the calling of Christ as well. Our role is to partner with the Godhead to see a person transformed by the power of the Godhead and move into a deep, penetrating, and self-denying relationship with Him. That is our success. To see a person being conformed into the image of Christ, his death, and the fellowship of his sufferings is our measure of success.

Let me say it clearly. The success metric of the scripture is not church size. One of the success metrics of scripture is obedience to the leading of the Godhead. Success is not found in large church buildings or in many different campuses. Success is found as people find themselves participating in the story of God, in a relationship of conformity to the life and death of Jesus, and obedient to the Trinity.

To see success as numbers only finds us participating in the consumerism that our culture has transformed the church into. Our understanding of success must be Cross Cultural, not simply cultural.

Notes:
1.  Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens, Neil Cole, 9
2.  Ibid.

Ministry Metrics: An Introduction

Have you ever been to one of those conferences at a large church where they give you the secret to making your church big? Did you ever come away feeling like a failure because you didn’t know the secret?

We know we are not supposed to compare ourselves to others, and compare our churches to other churches, but in our Western, American culture, size is king. Size is what we celebrate, particularly in churches. Every year, Outreach Magazine puts out a special issue describe the 100 largest churches in the US. In another issue, they detail the 101 fastest-growing church in the US. I have nothing against the lists but if I have learned one thing in ministry, it is this: What we celebrate we measure, and what we measure determines success. Celebrating largeness means that success is determined by largeness.

Every year when I fill out forms for our denomination, I get annoyed. The reason I get annoyed is that all they want to know is how much and how many. How much money did you take in? How much money did you spend? How many people were in your missions program? How many people did you baptize? How many? How Much? Just once, I would love to see some questions on that annual church report like this: Tell us how someone in your church influenced a person in the community this year. Another question that would be great to celebrate is: Describe how someone in your church made life better for a non-Christian.

I understand the numbers game. We need to know how many are part of our church and our denomination. We need to determine if we are getting bigger (which is different than growing) or getting smaller. But in truth, part of all this measurement is competition. We like to describe, via numbers, how big we are and how many people we influence. We like being the biggest, or the second biggest. It is the American way. Bigger is better, more is better, and when your church or company is bringing in lots of money and lots of people, the person in charge is considered a great leader. And who doesn’t want to feel they are doing a good job, even a great job? Numbers are important to understand and need to be acknowledged. We need to know how much we spend on ministry and we need to know if we are being good stewards of the resources God has given us. However, to use them as a measure of success is just not part of the heart of God.

The CEO, corporate success mentality that has invaded the church is truly a reflection of the culture we live in. What we see exalted through our media is the celebrity. In the church, it’s the celebrity pastor. We are fascinated with the celebrity, whether it is Britney and Paris, Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds or Tom Brady, or pastors such as Rick Warren or Bill Hybels. We follow their moves, read their books, and imitate their dress. Moreover, people are attracted to their celebrity; many even hang on their every word.

When people are looking for a church to attend, large still wins. A large church is reflective of all the activities you can be involved in. A large church provides all the opportunities for you to be catered to. It offers a smorgasbord of ministries to meet your needs. It actually plays to our culture. The ME culture which began in the 1960’s and now is fully blown in Generation Me requires special attention and special needs – it’s all about us. And the church has responded. We have all kinds of ministries to deal with our dysfunctional society. Our sermons reflect our neediness: 10 Ways to have a better life, 6 ways to be more productive, and so on and so forth. I’m not against those types of sermons – I’ve preached them and even listened to them. Unfortunately too many of our churches only preach those kinds of sermons.

A Spainful Reminder
In 2008, I traveled to Spain and spent five days with missionaries from all across Western Europe. There were folks there from Spain, France, and Germany. Missionaries from the UK and Belgium were there as well. It was a breath of fresh air to listen to their stories and share in their experiences. However, part of their story greatly saddened me. I looked into the eyes of these people who left family and friends and most everything they own to travel across the pond to serve Christ. They had to learn a new language, a new culture, and many of them are isolated. No wonder Western Europe is called the graveyard of missionaries. These people work and serve and make investments, the likes of which most Christians in USAmerica would not dream of making. And while there may be 10,000 churches planted per month in parts of Asia, it takes years of relationship development for a person to consider embracing the message of the Gospel in Western Europe. So while on one side of the world is baptizing thousands, on the other side of the world they may only be baptizing hundreds.

Then they come home on furlough. Imagine standing before people who give money to missions and telling of how you’ve made investments in people and shared Christ with people in non-American ways, and the person you are telling your story begins to ask, “How many?” “Why aren’t you guys reaching thousands like in Asia?” What I heard were people broken because they come home on furlough or vacation or talk with people in the States and all those people wonder about is numbers. These missionaries often feel like failures because they can’t talk about the thousands coming to Christ.

What most people in the US do not understand is that what is going on in Asia, China specifically, is a reflection of two centuries of soil development and seed planting. Bob Roberts, in his book The Multiplying Church: The New Math for Starting New Churches, describe the importance of time and movements. He reminds us about the movement in China, “Hudson Taylor, Robert Morrison, and others labored there 150 years earlier. The seeds have to be planted for the movement to gain momentum. It took the early church 350 years to get to movement status. In the United States, the greatest church planting period came in the 1800’s, 200 years after the pilgrims landed.” (1)

So for two hundred years, the gospel was being planted by faithful men and women. It took two hundred years for the gospel to reach movement status.

What is now going on in Asia is the harvesting of seeds planted centuries ago. In Western Europe, the seeds of the Gospel are having to be re-planted. Planting is different work than harvesting, but planting must be done before harvesting takes place. There is a true biblical, and agricultural principle. You reap what you sow. You reap more than you sow. But you only reap after you so, so patience is required to reap the harvest. Yet we somehow compare Western Europe with Asia and are more concerned with how much and how many. We need to hear this message in the United States. We, for some reason, have lost the patience of the farmer. We have also lost the understanding that we need to sow the seed of the gospel as much as we harvest what is ripe.

I mostly sat in Spain listening to their stories and feeling their pain. It is easy to feel like a failure when you compare yourself and ministry to the Osteen’s, Young’s, Stanley’s, Hybels’, and Warren’s of the world. It is easy to feel like a failure if you are a missionary in Western Europe where the soil is hard and the planting difficult and you have few numbers to brag and boast about. Many pastors in USAmerica know how they feel. I wonder if we are able to admit that.

The Blessing of God?
Fellowship Church in Grapevine, TX had their 2008 C3 Conference. The church, pastored by Ed Young, Jr., is a massive church near the Dallas-Forth Worth Airport. They have five campuses, four in the Dallas area and one in Miami, FL. During the opening of the C3 Conference, Ed had some fun(2) with Joel Osteen, pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston that has 47,000 + in worship each week. The church bought a downtown sports area, the Compaq Center a few years ago to house their massive turn out. The video that was shown to open the conference intimated that the blessing of God falling on a person or church results in largeness. Blessings equal bigness. I know they would never say that, but remember, what is celebrated is measured, and what is measured determines success.

If Not Numbers, Then What?
That is the question I hope we can answer. Beyond the numbers and beyond the “how many” and “how much”, I hope we can reframe success and help us see God’s standard. It may surprise you. It may just relieve your soul.

Now I want to make a statement, and one that I mean sincerely: Not all that is big is bad. The truth is that the blessings of God do fall and when that happens a church will grow. I applaud Rick Warren, because of the thousands his church has baptized and for the impact of Saddleback and Rick across the world. Same with Fellowship Church and Ed Young, Jr. But the truth is that very few churches will be like Saddleback. Or Willow Creek. Or any other mega-church. In addition, simply reaching megachurch status does not mean you are impacting your community or seeing transformation occurring. Spend some time and read The Church of Irresistible Influence: Bridge-Building Stories to Help Reach Your Community by Robert Lewis to discover a megachurch who realized they were not impacting their community.

While we celebrate the rise of the mega-church and it’s role in American Christianity, we need to hear some sobering words from Bob Roberts:

I have a vision and a dream. Let’s start a thousand churches over the next ten years, each one running a minimum of two thousand members, and in just ten years we will turn America upside down with the gospel! That would work, right? Wrong – that scenario just happened over the past ten years, and there are fewer people in the church today than ever before…Thom Rainer, author and columnist, wrote:

I am by nature an optimist. I have seen the hand of God too often in my life to live in a state of despair and defeatism. However, the state of evangelism in the American Church is such that I do have my moments when I wonder if the Church is headed down the path of many European congregations: decline and death. The facts of a 2004 research project I led are sobering. (3)

While the mega has increased, fewer people are involved in the local church. So while bigger isn’t bad, is also isn’t better. It also does not lead to a great impact of Christ in the community.

Notes:
1. Bob Roberts, The Multiplying Church, 33.
2. http://cp.blogs.com/cp/2008/02/ed-has-fun-with.html, accessed February 28, 2008.
3. Roberts, 25.

Let's All Go to Sunday School!

A few weeks ago, I had a call from a lady who used to be the Minister of Education of a large denominational church in the South. She, along with my denominational tribe were planning an event to train leaders in Sunday School in our state as part of a big event that will be happening over the next couple of years. She wanted me to attend and to bring my Sunday School director. She also told me they were going to also begin working out the opportunity to partner us (and other churches in our tribe) with Ministers of Education from churches in the South so we could have insight into how to effectively run our education ministry. I told her that we didn’t have Sunday School, so she said they would treat our small groups like Sunday School. I also told her that because of our size I would be the only one attending, assuming that I went. She really wanted me to bring someone. She also pushed for a commitment, though they did not have the date, place or time determined yet.

Today I received a call from that same lady letting me know that the event would be next week at a certain church in our state. She wanted me to bring my Sunday School leadership. I told her again that we don’t have Sunday School and that I would be the only one from my church attending. She again pushed for me to bring someone that could be trained as Sunday School director. I made no promises.

So I was driving home and thinking about this call and it really frustrated me. There are a few reasons for that frustration:

1. I just finished doctoral work on changing behavior. I know this: information does not lead to transformation. Sitting in a Sunday School class will not bring about spiritual formation. All it does is dispense information that few will really take home with them regardless of the ability of the teacher. In other words…Sunday School really is not effective for spiritual formation. Trust me, I’ve been in Sunday School for 35 years in all kinds of contexts…I know it well.

2. Why would I listen to a Minister of Education from the South who has no idea how to do ministry in my context? If they want to facilitate discussion with my leadership, that’s one thing. But to help me do ministry in an area where they have no clue about people in this area is a bit silly.

3. We don’t have Sunday School. We do spiritual formation as part of leadership development in a holistic way. We mentor, not hold Bible classes.

4. Studies show that our denominational way of doing things is not effective. Why are would I want to perpetuate a system that doesn’t work? To quote the (in)famous Ed Stetzer, “What is the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results.”

What we really need to consider is changing the system not the method. Spiritual formation is a journey towards wholeness. It requires emotional healing, a new way of thinking, a community of faith, and identity transformation. It is done in sharing life experiences. It is most effective around a dinner table, at the golf course, fishing, on vacation, or around a campfire, not in a Sunday School class. Our denomination needs to change the system, not the method. In fact, we need change a lot of systems.

But what do I know? I’m just a guy who pastors a church in the Mid-Atlantic that has trained, mentored and released over 100 missionaries that our church has sent out to do ministry all over our country in the past five years in the marketplace.

So the question I have is this…Do I go to this meeting next week? And if I do, how do I tell this lady nicely that I appreciate her but I am not into perpetuating a program I do not believe works? Any thoughts? Of course, it could be that I’m just being too harsh. Feel free to comment on that as well.