How to Start a CityWell

I had a conversation with a new friend this week about the potential of CityWell churches and along with the philosophical, theological and biblical questions came this very pragmatic one: "So how will this start?" What a fine question!

As in other posts I feel compelled to remind myself and readers that I have never done this before, so at least part of my answer has to be, "I really don't know." However, that is not all I have to say. I think we have some great pointers in the scriptures, particularly the book of Acts, where we find several models of church planters in action. More than that, we find in Acts examples of intentionally multi-ethnic churches and the accounts of their beginnings. There are also many thriving multi-ethnic congregations around the country that serve as guides to those of us hoping to follow in their footsteps.

In Acts chapter 8 we find that persecution has broken out against the church and many of the followers of Jesus have scattered. In verses 4-5 we read: Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. Two very significant things strike me here. First, everyone preached the word. The scattering that occurred did not include the apostles; they stayed in Jerusalem. These preaching refugees were ordinary folks (these ordinary preachers are an example of what I am looking toward in the earlier post, Ordinary Leaders).

Second, and these verses are instructive for how a church like the CityWell must begin, Phillip decided to go to Samaria. He didn't accidentally end up there. Philip was a Jew (a Hellenist to be precise, but this just meant a Greek speaking Jew), and Jews never accidentally went to Samaria. He intentionally crossed lines of culture and race to share with these people the good news of Jesus. Likewise, CityWell churches will only be churches for all people if we are intentionally churches for all people. In our culture a multi-ethnic congregation can almost never happen without such intentionality. We will have to determinedly form relationships with people of varying backgrounds, races and cultures, and, like Philip, we will do so explicitly because of Jesus, who transgressed every social, cultural and religious boundary in his ministry of reconciliation.

The narrative continues: And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. Philip's impact in Samaria was a matter of word and deed. So it must be with the CityWell churches. First, Philip's message was unapologetically about Jesus; so will ours be. Second, in our calling to seek the welfare of the city (Jeremiah 29:7), we will begin and continue as servants of our city, whose deeds give credibility to our message. Notice two things about Philip's deeds: first they address people's spiritual and physical needs, and second, they are marked by the power of God. I believe the church can and must engage the city and it's needs in these same ways today.

So, the short answer to how we start is this: We will prayerfully and intentionally seek to build relationships across lines of class, race and culture, believing that God will bring together exactly the right people to begin the CityWell dream. As these relationships form, we will begin to share our lives together, seeking God's will and power to become the church we are called to be. We will pray like crazy. We will worship together and encourage one another. We will look for ways to serve the city in the name of Jesus. We will share our vision with anyone who will listen and trust God to draw people. All of this we will do long before we launch public worship services because we are talking about planting a church, not just a worship service. CityWell churches will not begin with a pre-fab, cookie-cutter model; beginning with a general vision to be a church for all people centered around the life, teaching and calling of Jesus, the details of our vision and plans will develop as we go, as we consider the intersections of our context, the people God brings to us, and the call of the scriptures. If these churches come to be, there will be no doubt that this is a movement of God! I pray that it will be!

Why Multi-Ethnic?

I have suggested in several of these posts (and in conversations with many of you) that CityWell churches will aspire to be intentionally multi-ethnic. Commonly the response to this hope is, "Why?" I have three primary reasons; congregational multi-ethnicity is a matter of:

1) Faithfulness to the Gospel vision

2) Effectiveness in our Gospel witness

3) Fullness of Gospel life

There is so much to say about this first reason, but for now I’ll be short and somewhat general. I believe that at the heart of the Gospel is earth-shattering, life-giving fact that God has reconciled the world to Himself in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:18-19), and that this means that in ways we can barely grasp the reality of (but it is nonetheless REALITY), in Christ’s body the dividing walls between God and humanity and between all peoples have been torn down (Ephesians 2:14-16).

Forever. 

Continually in the Scripture we are called to live according to the vision of all God has accomplished in Christ and will bring to completion on the Last Day. In Revelation 7:9 John sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” In Revelation 21:24-26 we find an image of the kings of the earth entering the New Jerusalem bringing the glory and honor of the nations to God in praise. This is where we are heading - a church of all peoples, undivided, united in praise, not squashing but celebrating the distinctiveness of the world’s cultures. The church triumphant will not be mono-ethnic, so why should the church on earth be? Jesus calls us to live concretely, here and now, according to all that is true in Him, in order that His kingdom would come on earth as in heaven. This is a Gospel vision and it is splendid! We must not be content to pursue anything less.

It is not coincidental that the churches we read about in the New Testament were made up of Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, male and female, slave and free. All of these would-be cultural fault-lines of division become bonding seams in the church because in Christ God created a new humanity, a third race, if you will. This is who we are to be, and I think we are impoverished in the experience of this reality insofar as our congregations are mono-ethnic. More than that (and this leads to the second reason to pursue multi-ethnicity), I fear that to the degree we do not pursue a corporate life that reflects the heart of the Gospel, we diminish our witness to the truth of the Gospel. Jesus prayed for the church’s unity in order that the world may believe that the Father sent Him (John 17:21). This inclines me to think there is a very significant correlation between our visible unity and the effectiveness of our witness.

In addition to this, the demographics of our country are changing radically and rapidly, and I think we are living in a historical moment where the racial and ethnic divisions in the church are more unpalatable to the unbelieving world than ever before. The fact of our Sunday morning segregation only makes the church appear more irrelevant in an increasingly multi-ethnic world. Conversely, powerful will be the witness of congregations who, through reconciliation to God in Jesus Christ, commit to the messy, difficult, but ultimately beautiful work of reconciliation across lines of race, culture and class.   

Finally, multi-ethnicity is a matter of fullness of Gospel life. In the midst of Jesus’ prayer for our unity he said, “these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.” I believe that real-life, real-time reconciliation and shared worship and ministry is part of the “life to the full” that Jesus came to give the world (John 10:10). I have no doubt that God is doing mighty work and pouring our blessing in all kinds of congregations, whether mono or multi-ethnic, but the presence of God’s blessing should make us hungry for more, not complacent with the status quo. I hope CityWell churches will always yearn for everything God has in store for us in Christ, that we might taste the fullness of Gospel life.

Ultimately, only God can accomplish something so unlikely, and if the Lord does not build the house, the workers labor in vain! Please join me in prayer that God would do just such a work in our midst!

The MOST Important Question: A Foretaste

So, I'm operating under the conviction that the primary purpose of the church is to be a sign, a foretaste and an instrument of the Kingdom of God. In the last post we explored what it might mean to be a sign; in this post we'll consider what it means for the church to be a foretaste. I would suggest that a foretaste is something to be personally experienced (tasted to be precise), something to be shared with others, and something that creates a deep longing for more.

The church is to be a foretaste of all that God will one day bring to completion. So, if the Biblical picture of the new creation is one where forgiveness finds fullest expression then we are to be a community of people radically committed to forgiving one another and all who wrong us. If the Kingdom to come will be marked by justice and God's provision, then the church must be committed to meeting the needs of members and community. If the new heavens and earth is to be populated by people from "every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages..." and we are to join in one anthem, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10) then the church ought to reflect the full diversity of its city. If heaven is to be an eternity of joy and celebration, then the church must be a people of contagious joy, gratitude and hope! Jesus believed His followers could be just such a foretaste, and to that end taught us to pray, "Thy kingdom come ON EARTH as in heaven!"

I believe God has every intention that these things are to be personally experienced, at least in part, within the community of the church, here and now. This has significant implications as to what we are to expect in our participation in the life of the church, and why and how we invite others to join in. We all know that true forgiveness, justice, reconciliation, joy and celebration are rare in our world, and yet these are the things that can and must mark our lives as God's people, the church. Is that what we expect, or do we settle for something far less, something more facile and less demanding? Do we understand that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us and that by His power this life can take root and manifest in us (Romans 8:11)? This is not mere idealism, unless, of course, believing in the power of Christ's resurrection is the same! The church is called to embody these things, the church can embody these things, and thank God, sometimes the church does embody these things.

When we live together as a foretaste of the Kingdom of God, then we can say to our friends  and neighbors, with confidence and joy, "Hey, come taste this for yourself." An invitation like that trusts that God is actually present with and among us and working in tangible, observable ways. Such an invitation looks like Philip's to Nathaniel, "Come and see" (John 1:46), and rests on the hopeful, live-giving truth that following Jesus is a real-life, day to day adventure with a living God, and not just assent to a list of religious propositions. Might it be that the communal life of the church (and not some form of argumentation) is the primary evidence for the truth of the Gospel? Is this what Jesus meant when He prayed in John 17:20-21 that by our unity the world might come to believe that He is from the Father? I think so.

I pray that in CityWell churches we will expect more than an entertaining experience, inspiring worship and good programs for our kids. I pray that we will expect God to do more than we ask or imagine, to make us mighty in service and witness to Him. I pray that we will experience deep reconciliation with the Lord that breaks out into deep reconciliation with each other across dividing lines of every kind. I pray that we will personally taste and see that the Lord is GOOD! And when we do two things will happen: We will invite others to share in this life of Christ with us, and we will long for more, for the consummation of God's Kingdom. This is what the church, as a foretaste, does... it offers a taste of ultimate reality to be personally experienced and shared with others, and it breeds longing for the fulfillment of all God's promises. May it be so among us!

The MOST Important Question: A Sign

What are the primary reasons for the church's existence, and, by extension, why should there be CityWell churches?

These are first order questions, the answers to which will determine the answers to pretty much every other question. So, here is my first response: The church exists, and hopefully CityWell churches will exist, to be a sign, a foretaste and an instrument of the Kingdom of God. I'll address each of these elements in successive posts.

To say that the church is a sign of God's Kingdom presupposes something about the world, as well as something about God's intentions for the world and strategy to realize those intentions; namely, the world exists, from creation unto eternity, to be the theater of God's life-giving love, the stage where divine dance constantly creates and invites the creation to joyful participation. That’s why we’re here, you know – to join in the dance, to share life with God, to enjoy the Lord forever!

Well, obviously things in our world don’t always resemble a divine dance; we often experience destruction rather than creation, and our lives are as often marked by brokenness as by joy. Yet however far astray from God’s intentions we have fallen, God remains determined to reclaim all that is lost, to make everything sad come untrue (thank you Jason Grey for that phrase), to make all things new, to bring His kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven!

So what does that have to do with the church, and in particular with CityWell churches? In short, everything! The church is to be a sign of this coming Kingdom of God; our whole identity, our mission, our very existence is determined by God’s prerogative to bring about a new creation. To say that we are to be a sign of the kingdom is to suggest something both exalts and humbles the church.

First, the church is exalted in God’s grand scheme to route evil and reconcile all things to Himself, as God has designed that through the church the wisdom of God in its rich variety might now be made known (Eph. 3:10). There is no escaping the fact that, for reasons only God knows, the church is at the center of God’s strategy to right the world again.

Second, though, the church is humbled by it’s role as a sign, for a properly functioning sign also points beyond itself. Being a sign, means to always bear in mind that this isn’t about us; this is all about GOD and His Kingdom. The church must assume the posture of John the Baptist, who seeing Jesus said, “I must become less, that He might become more” (my paraphrase of John 3:30).

So, CityWell churches will have to continually ask of themselves: Do we recognize the magnitude and significance of what God is calling us to? Are we trifling with religious consumerism or are we engaged on the front lines of the invading Kingdom? Are we aware that this is not all about us, and that we can easily be distracted from a Kingdom focus by seemingly more pressing concerns such as attendance, budgets and our own institutional survival? Is our ministry geared more toward the church or more toward the world into which the church is sent as a sign? When people who do not know Jesus come into contact with us, will they see us lifting up ourselves, our interests and our programs, or will it be clear that we are about Jesus’ agenda for the world? When people look at our life together will they see a dance? Will they see joy and creation and beauty? Will they see the signs that God is in fact busy making all things new?

I pray that CityWell churches will be signs - hopeful, joyful, life-giving signs that God has indeed inaugurated His kingdom through Jesus, and that this kingdom is coming to completion!   

The 10:2b Virus

About six months ago author Neil Cole (Organic Church, Organic Leaders) infected me with a contagious virus known as 10:2b. If you're not totally opposed, I'd like to pass the virus on to you.

At the beginning of Luke 10 Jesus is sending out 72 of his followers to be His forerunners in all the towns to which He was planning to go. He grants them all the authority to heal the sick and to proclaim the Kingdom of God (which is a pretty amazing investment of power and responsibility), but in verse 2 He also gives them a command: And he said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest." The command, of course, is to pray, which is not merely preparation for the work of ministry; it is the work itself!

Jesus situates His command in an observation that is both hopeful and heavy at the same time: The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. This is the reality of the church's environment in every time and place, and Jesus' words remind us of the necessity of our complete dependence upon our Lord if we are to see this situation as hopeful (The harvest is plentiful!) rather than heavy (ughhh... where are the laborers?). In view of the awesome harvest God calls us to, we must cry out to the Lord that HE might raise up the laborers for HIS harvest field. We will not succeed in this work on our own, for like the Psalmist says in Psalm 127:1 - Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. 

As I dream about the harvest CityWell churches may be a part of, I know this work cannot be accomplished except by the power of Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. I do not want to labor in vain, so I have volunteered to be infected with the 10:2b virus. Every day at 10:02 am the alarm on my phone goes off and I stop whatever I am doing to pray the second part of Luke 10:2 (thus the "b"): "Father, you alone are the Lord of the harvest, and I beg that you would raise up laborers for Your harvest field, that the CityWell churches may be houses built by Your hands." To this base, I add specific prayers for people to be prepared even now for the ministries God will call them to in these churches. This has been a great discipline of intentional dependence, which could also be called a practice of living in reality.

So what do you say? Care to catch the virus? I would love your partnership in these prayers.