The MOST Important Question

What are the primary purposes for the church's existence? Implication question: Why should there be CityWell churches?

These are first-line questions that must be answered compellingly for every church. I'd love to know what you think. Feel free to offer thoughts on one or both of these questions. To submit comments I think you need a google account, which you can open with whatever existing email address you already use. So, make a comment, choose "google account" under "comment as" and hit "submit." You'll be guided through the simple google account initiation.

I look forward to your thoughts!

Ordinary Leaders

PsychoDoc - fantastic questions on my post, The Plural Church! Thank you for pressing on these things. I should begin by reminding readers that I'm on the "dreaming" side of this, so my thoughts are largely theoretical at present, though I think based upon Biblical precedent and contemporary study / observation.

First, I think the vast majority of new churches begin as small groups of people gathered around a vision of and sense of calling toward what God is doing in a particular place at a particular time. Think, for instance, of the Philippian church that began Lydia, a jailor and his family. With the exception of the mass conversion in Acts 2, this seems to be the pattern of new church development in the NT. This also corresponds to current NCD practices in which most new plants begin with a small but highly committed core team.

These small groups grow into larger churches when they are passionate about forming communities that demonstrate the Kingdom on earth, in our present lives, as in heaven. Such communities, if they are to be faithful to Jesus’ calling, are to live in obedience to Jesus’ teaching and imitation of His life, which means they are to be missionary by nature. In John 20:21 Jesus said to His followers: As the father sent me, so I am sending you. To be so sent and to have this Kingdom passion inevitably means a being deeply committed to sharing the Gospel with anyone and everyone we meet who is not yet a follower of Jesus. This sharing is always an invitation to faith, which necessarily means becoming a part of a Kingdom community, a partner with God as one of “the sent ones,” and a proclaimer of the Gospel of Jesus. Faithfulness to the teaching and example of Jesus means the church is always poised for growth since it is always poised to share its faith and invite participation from those not yet “in the family.” I wonder if the strangeness of the idea of rapidly replicating churches in our culture is due to our loss of this primary missionary posture.

So what about leaders? What are the requisite credentials for leadership? Where is the accountability to doctrinal integrity? These are areas of concern that we find both in the New Testament and in modern Christian institutions. However, I would suggest that our current approaches to authenticating church leaders are a far stretch from what we see in the Bible. I can’t think of a Biblical equivalent to our practice of requiring four years of undergraduate study and at least three years of graduate/seminary work before a person can fulfill their calling to ministry. Jesus had a tendency of empowering unlikely ministers that would drive most boards of ordained ministry nowadays insane. Jesus commissioned the Samaritan woman of ill-repute, the crazy Gerasene demoniac, and a rag-tag band of Torah school drop-outs to be His witnesses. Early in His ministry Jesus sent his disciples out to do everything He did: proclaim the kingdom, heal the sick and drive out demons. What were the credentials that made these people adequate leaders in the Kingdom? I would suggest that the fundamental prerequisites are a calling from the Lord, the empowerment of His Spirit, and a posture of obedience. Everyone Jesus chose and empowered fit Paul’s description from 2 Corinthians 4:7 – they were treasure bearing jars of clay whose very ordinariness put on display the all-surpassing power of God. I wonder if our contemporary ordination practices not only hinder the birthrate of new churches but limit what the Spirit of God desires to do through ordinary church folk.

Now, the scriptures talk a lot about the gifts of the Spirit, and whereas ALL followers of Jesus are gifted for ministry, we are not all gifted for the same ministries. I believe the first line of discernment as to who a community’s leaders will be is the community itself. Note the way leaders were chosen in the book of Acts: people of demonstrable faith and wisdom were called forth from the various communities to be leaders. Wherever Paul established a church he appointed elders from among them to lead. There is a faith-commitment in this practice: wherever God calls forth a church, God provides the necessary leadership within that church. Such a practice requires the community’s discernment of gifts within its members and the empowerment of people to live into those gifts.

Since the CityWell churches will be in the United Methodist connection we have the great fortune of taking advantage of one of our equipping and deploying structures, the Local Pastor Licensing School. This school is an annual two week gathering of lay ministers who have felt called to pastoral leadership and had that call confirmed by both their local congregation and District leadership. This course will allow us to credential leaders who our communities have set apart for pastoral ministry without having to first send them to seminary. The UMC connection also entails extensive ongoing education opportunities for such pastors and accountability to doctrinal integrity that will be practiced rigorously within the network of CityWell churches and leaders.

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am anything but anti-intellectual. In fact I find it very significant that Jesus calls us to love the Lord our God with our minds. Theology is HUGELY important. I believe every follower of Jesus (particularly leaders) must be continually committed to the disciplines of theology and study of scripture. However, I think we tend to operate with a mythical and destructive idea that good theology and pastoral effectiveness only come through the academy. Some of the most effective ministers I have ever known never went to seminary, and the most effective seminary trained ministers I know were effective before they went to school. Seminary can be helpful or hurtful, and, in either case, is not the place of call and gifting. At its best, a seminary is a place where gifts are honed and calls are followed. We need to remember that in Acts 4 the leaders of the Sanhedrin noted of Peter and John that “they were unschooled, ordinary men…” but that “they had been with Jesus.”

I pray that CityWell churches will raise up and empower such ordinary leaders marked by having been with Jesus, by the empowerment of His Spirit, by the authentication of the church body (local and connectional), by a love for the scripture and a hunger to learn, and by a passion to lead people in a growing life of discipleship to Jesus. Whether or not they have seminary training, is really not the central question in my mind.

Nothing.

The guys who first followed Jesus around must have gotten used to having their egos deflated on a pretty regular basis. I think I'm a pretty normal guy, and so I'm guessing at least a few of those first disciples thought like I do, which is to say that every once in a while they might have thought themselves to be a bit better than they were. This is a dangerous tendency for anyone, but especially if you're trying to follow Jesus. He has this way (often not so subtle) of helping us to form more sober estimations of ourselves. Just think about John 15:5 - Apart from me you can do nothing.

Nothing.  

Really, Jesus? Nothing?

Nothing.

So, what are we to do with that? Well, there is certainly a literal truth to the statement. After all Jesus is the one through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together, so even our breathing happens within the grip of his grace. But beyond that are we to be suspicious of any confidence we are inclined to have in any area of our lives? Are we to be insecure people lacking self-assurance? Are we to beat ourselves up and take Jesus' statement as a mantra of self-deprecation: "I am nothing. I'm ugly and my momma dresses me funny. Sigh. Slump. Tear." Surely this is not the point of Jesus' statement. Might there be a life-giving paradox in Jesus' assertion? I think so.

Rather than destroying our confidence or view of ourselves, I believe Jesus makes this stark declaration of our incapacity in order to establish our confidence and lift our self-understanding. Jesus has tremendous confidence in us. He believes in us. He wants us to succeed and thinks we can... just not alone. But herein lies the good news, the gospel; we are not alone! Remember the context of Jesus' statement. Jesus is preparing His followers for ministry after His death, resurrection and ascension. He has already told them that they will do the works He does and even greater things than those (14:12); he has promised them that they will receive the Holy Spirit and that they will never be left orphaned (14:15-18); and just before the whole "nothing" thing he promises that we will bear much fruit if we abide in Him (15:5a).  Jesus doesn't want us to expect less of ourselves; He wants us to expect more. He isn't taking shots at our sense of identity; He is elevating our identity in tandem with His!

So, why the "nothing" bit? I think Jesus reminds us our our incapacity so that we will depend on his capacity - fully available and freely offered to us. We are not to settle for what we can accomplish on our own, but are to dream toward and expect far more than that. Like Psalm 127:1 says: Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. But for those who build with the Lord all things are possible.

All things.

I pray that the Lord will build the CityWells, that we will continually remember that apart from Jesus' power, presence, vision and provision we can do nothing. Only when we embrace nothing will we begin to experience the all things Jesus has in mind for us. Can you even imagine what all this might be?

The Plural Church

Today a good friend of mine read this blog and asked me, "Are you talking about a church or a bunch of small groups?" Good question. Here is my response:

I sense that you may be surprised by the plural language I'm using in this blog, so let me try to explain. CityWells, as I see them are churches, not small groups, though they may begin as small groups. I have been very compelled by a statement I read recently - something to the tune of "If you really want to impact the world for Christ quit thinking about planting trees and start thinking about orchards." Working from that, one of the core strands of DNA I hope to instill in the first CityWell is an absolute commitment to replication. I hope we will be a church that exists, in part, to start other churches which will in turn start other churches.

There are several motivating factors to this ambition. Foremost is the fact that there is no more effective way of bringing people into a disciple relationship with Christ than through new churches. All of the studies I've read (and I've read too many!) indicate the same thing: in the first ten years of a church's life evangelistic fervor and fruit is exponentially greater than in the remaining life of the church. Secondly, churches who have a regular, disciplined commitment to "parenting" new churches maintain their outward focus and evangelistic effectiveness at rates that far surpass churches that exist only unto themselves. Thirdly, a commitment to ongoing planting will require and ensure robust and continual leadership development and deployment that I hope will have tremendous kingdom impact. I have a friend who has planted five churches out of his first (of which he is still the pastor), and each of those has also parented new churches... all in the same city! He has become  a mass producer of effective pastors. That idea excites me!

So, from day one I hope the CityWell will understand itself to be a plural church.

What is a CityWell?

At present I am inclined to call the church (or network of churches) I am called to plant CityWells. This name comes from two passages of scripture that are foundational for what I believe the church is to be; one concerns the city; the other is about a well.

The first passage is Jeremiah 29:1-7. In these verses we find God's encouragement and command to His people who find themselves as exiles in Babylon. Jeremiah writes a letter to the leaders of the exiled community and tells them God's desires. We might expect God to tell the people to insulate themselves against evils of the pagan city and the prevailing culture, but we find something quite different. The Lord simply tells His people to live well in the midst of the city. God instructs them to do the things normal people do: build homes, plant gardens, get married, have kids, and build community. However, the people of God are not simply to do these things for themselves, as if God's goal is just to make us happy people. No, from the beginning God has always blessed people in order that they become a blessing to others. So, true to form, God calls his people to "seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare."

Live well. Bless the city.

The second passage is John 4:1-42 - the classic Jesus story about the Samaritan woman at Jacob's Well. Several things in this passage strike me as incredible and as central to God's calling for me to be a church planter. First, if the church is to remotely resemble Jesus, then we must be a radically inclusive people! At the well we see massive cultural barriers being torn down: male/female, Jew/Samaritan, God/sinner. I dream of churches that follow suit, where people of varying races, cultures and social classes come together by the unifying, line-crossing power of Jesus.

Second, I love that this woman is free to engage Jesus with all of her questions... though, like most of us, she wasn't necessarily asking the right questions. I dream of churches where people are free to discover the love of God through honest wrestling with hard questions, where no one feels like they have to check their brain at the door or suppress their doubts. 

Third, a well is a place where people go to find life-sustaining water. At this particular well the Samaritan woman discovers Jesus, the only source of living water! I dream of planting churches where we continually discover Jesus, grow in relationship with Him and learn to live with and for Him. These churches must be absolutely committed to sharing the good news of Jesus with anyone and everyone who does not yet know Him.

Fourth, this well is a place where Jesus radically empowers the most unlikely of persons to become His ambassador in her community. This marginalized woman becomes the herald of God's salvation for many in her village who came to trust in Jesus. I dream of planting churches where the common dichotomy between clergy and laity are dismantled and every follower of Jesus is empowered for ministry in their community.

Taking cues from these passages, I dream of CityWell churches where we live well, bless the city, tear down dividing walls, question honestly, discover Jesus, and become His agents of community transformation. That's the CityWell Dream!

Is Less Church More Church?

Is less church more church? Is one of the greatest drawbacks to church-as-we-know-it that it can consume our schedules in such a way as to cripple our ability to actually be the church, the presence of Christ in the world. Have we promoted the myth that serving God means volunteering at the church - ushering, teaching, chaperoning, or sitting in committee meetings? Have you ever felt guilty about not being "involved" enough at the church? I wonder if being the church means something more than volunteering at the church. What might it look like for churches to invite their people to fewer meetings and fewer programs while encouraging them to invest more time in their neighborhoods, in their schools, with their friends, in the community? What impact might we have if we understood that time to be sacred and our role to be missionary? What might it do to our perception and practice of what it means to follow Jesus if we believed that we don't have to extract ourselves from the "normal" places of our daily lives (work, neighborhood, teams, gym, coffee shop, bar, restaurants, etc...) in order to serve God? What if God has actually placed us strategically to live into and manifest His kingdom right where we are? Could churches be about our gathering to celebrate what God is doing daily in and and through our lives and then scattering to discover more and join in where God is at work around us? What if churches trained us to see ourselves as we are, missionaries of everyday life? Could CityWell churches follow the pattern of God's calling of Abraham who was blessed to be a blessing? Could we understand ourselves as gathered to be scattered?  

Big Scary Dreams

Often when I read the accounts of the earliest followers of Jesus I am struck by the enormity of the tasks they were called to, and by the fact that they did them! Imagine, your sitting around the fire with Jesus one day and He says to you and your friends, "Ok, so tomorrow I'm going to take a little sabbatical; you go out and proclaim the kingdom, heal the sick and cast out any demons your run across. Just do what I do." Simple, right? Just do what Jesus does. Or, imagine being Peter in the boat with the disciples watching Jesus  walk on water. Of course Jesus invites you to the easy things.... "Come on out here, big boy! It's just a little water." No problem, right?

So, I'm thinking, might Jesus still call us to the seemingly impossible? As I dream toward the new churches God is calling me to plant, I am praying for BIG SCARY DREAMS... visions that absolutely terrify me. I want to be like the disciples, who could never mistake the power of their ministry as being of themselves, who could never take credit for their successes and were able to rejoice in their apparent failures because they knew they were about God's business. I want to be out on the water where only Jesus can make us walk and where He alone is praised!

Might the CityWell churches be impossible communities formed in the name and power of Jesus? Communities that defy the cultural prescriptions of what the church can be? Communities where dividing walls of class and race are torn down? Communities where every follower of Jesus is radically empowered to do what He does? Communities where thousands and thousands of people discover the salvation won for them by Jesus? Communities born pregnant and passionate about birthing more churches? Now that is BIG SCARY DREAM because we can never do these things by ourselves! The good news is that we are not by ourselves, and nothing is impossible with our God!