How Cultural Understanding Drives Church Effectiveness

by: Ed Stetzer

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In each era and each cultural environment, the church defines its missiological quest in culture.

Now, that does not mean that everything is on the table. There are marks of a biblical church that matter in every cultural setting. However, each church has a quest to figure out how to engage its community and organize its ministries. That’s its missional quest and every church should ask such questions.

Taking into account the missiological quest, churches then ask based upon the current cultural moment what is the most effective way to accomplish the tasks of a biblical church? This is the cultural question.

While the missiological quest should never change, the answer to the cultural questions do change.

Though not in every way, the how of ministry is in many ways determined by the who, when, and where of culture.

Observing Paul’s missionary journeys show that he employed different strategies, methods, and/or terminologies in reaching Jews compared to those used in reaching Gentiles. The mission (and the missiological quest) was the same, but the cultural question changed the way he engaged the host culture.

With the cultural question constantly changing, this gives us contextualized church models.

It’s not just an evangelism question; it’s deeper. How we do church also changes from one culture to another. For example, how long does the service go, what approach to music, how to we disciple, etc?

Think of it this way: Missiological quest + Cultural question = A contextualized church model.

Let me illustrate the above.

Thoughts from the Seeker Church Approach

Think back to the seeker church movement.

Many such churches blossomed in a day when a lot of boomers were asking questions about church and faith and rejecting established traditional churches. In addition, given that many thought church was boring and irrelevant, they attempted to enliven church with its children and youth programs, the music, and the preaching style and content.

When I planted in Erie, Pennsylvania in 1994, I utilized many of the methodologies of this model. We didn’t try to demean other churches. Rather, we tried to communicate our different approach to church. I also (occasionally) wore a Hawaiian shirt, shoes without socks (I know; don’t judge me), and we had a band that sang contemporary music.

Soon after, many other churches in our community also had a contemporary service!

They wanted to have a contextualized church model—and that’s the right impulse.

They asked questions about what approach to church, within bibilcal norms, would connect most effectively with the context.

Given the cultural milieu at that time, the answer was: implement a genre of music that would resonate with people in the culture; provide them with substantive, practical, and relevant programming for their children; let the sermon topic and content be on their level, not for the religious elite; and if a building is built, make sure it doesn’t resemble a spartan, dated church building of the past century.

I’m not saying this was all great and perfect, and we did not do everything like everyone else, but I am saying that it aligned well with the context, and many such churches reached a lot of people (and many of them also discipled well).

Now, looking back, some may contend the seeker church model was wrong (and continues to be). I’m not writing to evaluate it, though I think that is a worthy undertaking and have done so in the past.

However, my point is the model lined up well with its culture. Looking back over the 80’s, 90’s, and early 2000’s, seeker church approaches reached a lot of unchurched and dechurched people—those who were disenfranchised from the traditional church.

While it worked then, this model is no longer as well aligned with the predominant cultural milieu. The shift is not true everwhere, but most would say that the seeker model does not engage our culture as well today, partly because culture has shifted to more of a negative perception of the church and organized religion in general.

In other words, there are still seekers, but now many don’t see the church as the place to find answers. Seeker strategies are predicated on the idea that they are.

Although people claim to be more spiritual they are skeptical of institutions, including religious ones, thus they opt out of organized religion altogether. Therefore, for the most part it doesn’t matter how “cool” or “relevant” churches are.

Those who would have gone back to church because of the “cool-factor” have already gone back.

Changes in Approach

What we have witnessed over the last decade or so, particularly in newer church models, are many in the church trying to engage the missiological quest for a new generation. So, new church models are taking into account the spiritual, post-Christian, pluralistic, skeptical, individualistic, consumerist, and diverse culture.

The church then thinks through the practices and methods that would be most effective at reaching the culture.

In his book Gaining By Losing, J. D. Greear asserts, “[I]f we want to reach the next generation, we are going to have to equip our people to reach them outside the church.”

That’s a question shaping new models of church of church practice.

Hold Your Mission Tightly and Your Models Loosely

When you look back on the last fifty years of church models, what you will find is that the models were most effective in their mission when they were contextualized (geared to their host culture). This drives some theologically-minded people crazy, but it’s what we train and require missionaries to do.

And, we must not forbid our churches to do the very thing we require international missionaries to do.

In other words, models were the result of the church understanding its missiological quest and asking the cultural question.

What we must learn is models come and go, for the culture is always changing and shifting. This doesn’t mean we cannot learn from each model and incorporate those things that are still effective. However, the takeaway from church models and cultural alignment is this: hold your mission tightly and your model loosely.

Be firm on the mission, but flexible on the methodology.

> Read more from Ed.

Tags: Church Effectiveness, Ed Stetzer, cultural, cultural understanding

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How Your Church’s Outward Focus Can Solve Inner Problems

by: Ed Stetzer

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Church revitalization is a very real and important topic to many today because statistics indicate that the majority of churches are plateaued or declining. So, since the majority of churches are not growing, if you’re a church leader, pastor, or Christian leader reading this you’re probably in a church that needs revitalization.

Thom Rainer says:

Nine out of ten churches in North America are declining, or they are growing slower than the community in which they are located. Nine out of ten churches need revitalization.

Because of the large number of struggling churches, many people think we should focus on church planting. Others think we should look for new ways to fulfill the mission, such as in missional incarnational communities.

Both of these expressions are good and vital. But there are many churches that are simply in need of revitalization. I am a big proponent of revitalization. I have been involved in such projects as a pastor, and have researched and written about the process as well.

Why outward focus?

Various factors contribute to a transformational church. You can find some of those in the book Transformational Church. One of the things you will find in churches that are growing disciples and growing numerically is an emphasis on outward focus. It is so integral that outward focus should be a part of revitalizing a church.

When a congregation is engaging in ministry and mission it causes people to live not for themselves, but, to quote 2 Corinthians 5:15b (HCSB), “for the One who died for them and was raised,” they become again who God designed them to be. When a group of such people are gathered as God’s “called out” ones, they can revitalize a church.

One of the reasons churches are stuck and stagnant is because they have for years pandered to the consumerist mentality of Christians. Then we’re shocked and surprised when people act like customers rather than co-laborers.

A pastor in a plateaued or dying church may ask, “How can a renewed outward focus be a key part of a church revitalization?” or, “How can we turn our church outward?”

Gospel revitalization

One consideration is the issue of gospel proclamation and gospel demonstration. I want us to see gospel proclamation as telling people that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and men and women can trust and follow Him by grace through faith. But I want us also to see gospel demonstration where people live out the implications of the gospel in their community.

Proclamation and demonstration, or message and ministry, are inseparable.

The proclamation and demonstration of the gospel message are two sides of the same coin. If you want to revitalize a church, gospel revitalization will be central to that.

Revitalized churches live the gospel in both word and deed. I have led churches through this process. If a church is to experience revitalization, the people must begin to think less about themselves and more about God, His glory, and His mission.

When people are focusing on that objective, and when they’re serving and ministering to others who are hurting and in need, we’ve learned they’ve got more time for ministry and less time to engage in drama.

Outward focus can solve inner problems

Confucius said: “He who rows the boat has no time to rock the boat.”

(Confucius didn’t say that, but somebody did and it’s true!)

An outward focus can avert church conflict. Instead of having a room full of customers demanding church their way, the music their way, the pastor their way, you have a room full of co-laborers who are receiving training to live out the mission of God.

When churches are living with this outward focus, they’re telling the good news of Jesus Christ. But they’re also engaging people in ministry and mission within the church and mission outside the church. Both of these things are taking place: engaging ministry inside and outside. There’s gospel proclamation and gospel demonstration.

Telling the message is part of living the message

One of the things that we found in research is that people in healthy churches don’t just proclaim the gospel because they are told they should. Rather, it is a natural part of the life of the church.

Evangelism in transformational churches is not viewed as an activity done by a few while everybody else watches. A church needing revitalization needs to understand that evangelism is not a spectator sport.

Christians love evangelism as long as somebody else is doing the work. But in transformational churches, those that were experiencing this revitalization and focus have owned the sharing of the gospel. And the church has often made a conscious decision that their existence is seeing people reconciled to God through Christ. So we see this focus and these practices along the way.

Sharing the Gospel defines us

We have increasingly seen in churches that are growing through conversion, that they were active, even aggressive, about servicing and engaging in their community. That activity was part of their DNA. Church membership even felt the ministry impact.

Transformational churches have a different perspective on church membership. More than signing a card and joining a church, membership in a healthy church often equals a commitment to serve both the church and the community.

Christ followers should be part of a community called church that is facing outward. This outward focus moves into the community with a certain passion for “sentness.”

> Read more from Ed.

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Tags: Church Revitalization, Ed Stetzer, Inward Focus, Inward Problems, Outward Focus

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2 Steps to Balance Your Church’s Discipleship Deficit

by: Ed Stetzer

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The topic of discipleship is one of increasing importance among many believers, and rightfully so. This topic deserves our attention even more today as church leaders realize there is a “discipleship deficit.”

One of the triggers of this term seems to be the Reveal Study performed by Willow Creek and done across a number of different churches to collect more accurate data. It found that significant numbers of people were not making the complete journey to becoming robust disciples. This finding was mainly attributed to the fact that people faced situations or places along their journey where they found themselves stuck, and unable to progress forward to deeper Christian maturity. This understanding caused Willow Creek to rethink what it might look like to have a more robust discipleship strategy.

This appears to be a trend across the spectrum of churches. Believers were failing to engage in taking the next step of their spiritual journey, and with regards to the steps that they were actually taking, there was somewhat a sense of dissatisfaction. Converts were being made. Churches are securing “decisions.” But far too few are growing into mature disciples of Christ.

It is not enough, however, for us to merely recognize this discipleship deficit. We should be asking what we can do to change it. We as evangelicals are not making robust disciples, and this elephant is one that can no longer be avoided.

Part of the solution process seems to have already begun. Many conferences are now talking about disciple making; yet, these focused times of discussion need to lead to action. Another encouragement is that many churches are beginning to assess the process and direction of their discipleship efforts, but at the same time the words of Winston Churchill come to mind: “However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” And that’s what we need to do. Let’s look at the process of disciple making and consider how this could be best undertaken. How could an evangelical church today make effective disciples who grow to such a maturity in their faith that they too could make more disciples? I believe there are two great (perhaps obscure) references in Scripture that would help us consider the topic of discipleship.

The first reference is in the New Testament where the Bible speaks of the people of Berea. Luke notes that the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians, and the reason he gives for this is that they searched the Scriptures to see what was true (Acts 17:11). My hope is that as we consider discipleship, we might be like the people of Berea who are truly grounded in the Word of God and let God’s Word shape our ideas, attitudes, and approaches. We need to search the Scriptures in order for us to correctly understand the many facets involved in discipleship.

When we conducted our Transformational Discipleship research, we noticed an interesting fact: the number one correlative factor to all other factors for discipleship was people being consistently engaged in the Word of God. The foundation for any discipleship strategy has to be the Bible and the implementation has to involve getting new believers studying Scripture personally and with others.

Yet while we hold this idea of Bereans in one hand, let’s quickly look at the other potentially obscure reference. The Old Testament speaks of the man of Issachar, and it says they discerned the times and knew what they should do (1 Chronicles 12:32). Discerning the times can and does mean a lot of things—and we actually do not get much from the context on what it means. I think it involves knowing the context, but most likely it would primarily involve knowing the situation of the people of Israel.

We have to understand the context in which God has placed us to know how discipleship works best. Yes, different strategies work best in different churches within different communities at different times. To end the discipleship deficit where you are, you need to know your people and then know what to do to help them grow as mature followers of Jesus. That might be small groups, special classes, one-on-one mentoring, or something else.

There’s much more about this in the Transformational Discipleship book, but as we continue to engage in this conversation around discipleship, may we be people of Berea standing on, searching through, and growing in the Word of God. May we also be people of Issachar who wisely think about best practices and strategies, discerning the times about how we might effectively disciple people in this day and in this age.

> Read more from Ed.

 Want to learn how to address the discipleship deficit in your church? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

Tags: Discipleship, Discipleship Deficit, Ed Stetzer

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4 Actions for a Church-wide Focus on Making Disciples

by: Ed Stetzer

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One of the more common roles in a church is discipleship leader. Recently, as I was updating Planting Missional Churches for its next edition, Daniel Im and I listed discipleship coordinator as one of the seven key roles in a new church. In other words, someone holding up the banner of discipleship, helping everyone participate, is key.

Yet, the role of discipleship leader in a church can be an extremely difficult one. If it is a staff role, I would argue that discipleship and students are two of the most scrutinized positions on a church staff, which probably explains the short average-tenure for both. Everyone seems to have an opinion on teenagers and spiritual growth.

Most church leaders would agree that discipleship should be a priority for the church, but they are unclear on how to best support the team tasked with designing and executing a system for helping make disciples.

No matter how the church is structured, there are a few things that a church can do to help those discipleship leaders keep a church-wide focus on making disciples.

Have clear expectations

It’s difficult to know what the wins are when there are no clear expectations to start with. This is easier with some ministries than others. For instance, there are measurable benchmarks with most weekend programs: are there more kids attending than last year? Are there more first-time visitors to the services?

But, how do you measure the making of disciples?

The leadership has to decide what and how to measure discipleship, and then evaluate success based on those measurements. There will always be a measure of subjectivity when it comes to assessing discipleship success, but some objective measures are possible: are there stories of life-change coming from the small groups? Are more people being baptized? How many people are involved in a discipleship community?

Whatever measures leaders choose, they should set yearly goals and make those expectations clear with the team. (Our church has used the Transformational Discipleship Assessment. There are other similar tools.)

Define discipleship for your context

One reason why it’s difficult to measure discipleship is because everyone has a different definition of what it is. Studies have revealed a deep chasm between what pastors and parishioners believe successful discipleship looks like. Parishioners tend to think they are being discipled more effectively than their pastors believe they are.

A driver for this divide is the difference in opinion on what constitutes spiritual growth. Churches have to outline what a person becoming more like Christ looks like, and then structure everything around helping them get there.

Keep open communication

The only way for the discipleship vision to continue flowing from the pastor is if there is constant two-way communication with the team and the whole church. They have to hear firsthand the direction that God is giving the senior leader for the next season of the church so the systems can be adjusted to support the vision. Discipleship must be at the forefront always.

If you are a pastor and have a discipleship pastor, invite the discipleship pastor to sermon planning meetings. Give the small groups team a voice in the calendaring process for major initiatives.

An open door of communication will help build ownership throughout the staff, and maintain unity on the team with regard to disciple making.

Resource with the right tools

In an established church the church budget brings clarity to the church’s priorities.

If it’s “all about the weekend,” a majority of the funds are automatically designated for ministries that make the weekend services more attractive (i.e., a more effective kids program; a better sound and lighting system; more attractive signage, etc.). There is nothing wrong with making the weekend experience better, but we cannot assume that discipleship will happen on its own. If the church is dedicated to making disciples who make disciples, the budget has to reflect that priority.

Probably, a chunk of a budget for discipleship teams is providing curriculum for small groups. The content provided for groups matters. A lot. Without a biblically solid study for foundation, a small group can quickly turn into a social club.

In some cases, people prepare to write their own studies to fit the need of their context, yet that takes a lot of work.

One thing that may help is something that LifeWay just recently released. (Full disclosure alert: I work there.)

It’s a tool that can help you be a better steward of time and resources. For example, with smallgroup.com, a pastor can give any or all of their leaders access to a library of Bible studies, including video-enhanced studies. Each study comes with a customizable discussion guide. Whether you are writing your own studies to go along with the weekend sermon, or allowing your groups to choose, smallgroup.com is one of those tools that can get you to a discipleship goal. And, you can sign up for a free trial if you want to check out the concept.

With clear expectations, communication, and the right tools; your discipleship team will be set up for success.

> Read more from Ed.

Want to learn more about discipleship strategies for your church? Connect with an Auxano Navigator and start a conversation with our team.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Making Disciples, Transformational Discipleship Assessment, discplemaking, smallgroup.com

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Five Tools to Develop a Strong Work Ethic

by: Ed Stetzer

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A church that breaks barriers needs a leader that breaks barriers.

Dealing with sin is of the utmost importance for a leader. But there is another issue that isn’t often discussed, and for those in ministry it goes hand in hand with confronting sin—the importance of a strong work ethic.

With sin, we cannot work hard enough to make God happy. Jesus did that for us. But when we experience joy in our forgiveness and salvation, God empowers us to work hard and accomplish things for His glory.

A barrier-breaking pastor is driven to do the work God has given that pastor. In the beginning of Genesis, God says a lot about our work. He has made us to do work, but sin has made it frustrating and difficult.

Sin can certainly lead us to be workaholics, and we burn ourselves or our people out. But it can also lead to the opposite, a poor work ethic.

As a church leader you often do a lot of the work outside of the view of your people, and that can be a temptation toward doing less and just trying to look busy.

Ministry is hard, but God empowers us for it. Leading churches that grow takes sacrifice, focus, and hard work. Here are a few tools you can use to stay focused on your work so that you will lead your church through growth barriers.

Work All Six

Places like America have a five-day work week with everybody working for the weekend—and there are even some trends moving toward a four-day work week. I want to encourage you to work during all six days and take one full day of rest, just like God designed it.

That doesn’t mean you work every moment of every day, ignore your marriage, and skip all of your kids’ events. But a six-day week in which you are working parts of those days engaged in your context helps keep your priorities centered on the world as God designed it to work.

Is your pursuit of rest idolizing God’s gift rather than using it to energize your God-given work? Work hard toward rest, and rest hard toward work.

Plan Your Work

It’s a lot easier to start your day focused on the task at hand when you planned your workday at the end of the previous day—or even your entire week at once. Maybe first thing Monday morning you set a general schedule of your week, then each evening you set a more detailed plan for the next day. How you use the blocks of unscheduled time will make the most difference.

It’s like a diet. If I plan the contents of my next meal, I’ll probably eat it. But if I go rummaging through the refrigerator I’ll too often end up being lazy and eating something not on my diet. Plan the productivity ahead of time, and then go for it.

Work In Segments

Think about working in segments of distraction-less environment. For example, the Pomodoro Technique uses a simple timer to break work segments into 25 minute periods. Once the 25 minutes are up, you have a five-minute break where you can do the things that typically distract you. You can read more about it here, but there are also many other tools that can help. Whatever you do, find tools that work for you to keep you focused.

Keep a Work Log

A great way to avoid distractions is to keep a work log. It can be paper or digital, whatever works for you. You may even want to share it with someone once a week to hold you accountable. But even when it’s not visible to others it’s a reminder to you, as you write down the time and a short description of what you did during that time, that you can be easily distracted and need to stay engaged.

What are the things that distract you most? Should you delete an app off your phone? Maybe your distraction is a good thing gone too far. Are you enjoying too many nights in front of the TV watching basketball? Be honest with what comes to mind first and take steps to keep it from ruling your schedule.

On the days where I have worked long, and done things of consequence, my rest is better and more sweet. My conscience is clearer. My joy in God’s grace is greater and I am more likely to trust Him with whatever comes next. If you struggle with a poor work ethic, try out some of these things and trust that God will do the same for you.

Trust God & Bear Fruit

If you are struggling with avoiding the hard work of ministry, God gives the grace to move through it toward a clear conscience and joy. But He will do so much more than that. He will prepare you from the inside out to be the kind of leader who breaks barriers and leads your church toward greater fruitfulness.

> Read more from Ed.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, pastor's work ethic, work, work ethic

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In the Numbers: Embracing Stats as a Vital Ministry Tool

by: Ed Stetzer

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I love statistics! I know what you’re thinking…I’m a nerd. Possibly. But, the truth is there are more nerds than you realize when it comes to statistics.

Stats a important for a number of reasons, and, although they can easily be misused or misconstrued, overall they can be helpful to pastors and others in ministry. Here are three reasons why.

Those of you who know me know my tentative relationship with all things sports. But, with our move to Wheaton I wanted to approach our new home missionally, so, I took in a Chicago Cubs game.

It isn’t that I know nothing of sports; I just haven’t kept up much. Going to the see the Cubs play, I’m learning the players, balls, strikes, touchdowns, and the like.

Even though I haven’t been that guy as a sports fan, Donna and I went to see Moneyballwhile it was in theaters. Now, almost everyone thought it was a movie about baseball—or about Brad Pitt—but it wasn’t. At least not at the core.

Moneyball was all about statistics—analyzing players’ performance, then selecting and playing those players based upon advanced stats. Home runs, hits, runs scored, and RBIs were recreated in aggregate, often using cast-off players, rather than one superstar player. It was a revolutionary approach to the game, and it was based on a statistical foundation.

Statistics, of course, aren’t limited to sports. What about those of you who are investors? Do you research the performance of a company that you are thinking about investing your money in? Sure you do.

What about those who have an important and possibly dangerous surgery coming up, do you want to know the odds of a successful surgery and recovery? Of course. Very few people want to go into it with no idea of the possible outcomes.

Numbers and statistics are part of our daily lives. Pastors and church leaders should embrace them as part of ministry.

How then do we use them?

Before I share how we should use statistics, let me share why some uses fail. Statistics shouldn’t be used to change a priori assumptions. For instance, we should not stop trusting scripture simply because someone may get up and say 74% of people believe the Bible isn’t what we think it is, so let’s stop believing it. The truth is that the Bible is authoritative regardless of what others say.

Also, statistics shouldn’t be used to determine how we do ministry. For instance, just because someone gets up and says that 90 percent of the church plants today implement the Launch Big model, doesn’t mean we should implement the same model in our next church plant.

Statistics shouldn’t be used to change our definitive beliefs nor determine how we do ministry. But they can be used in the following ways.

Statistics Help Define Reality.

Have you ever heard the statement, “facts are our friends”? It’s true. Statistics can be our friends in helping us determine reality. Statistics provide us information on people’s thoughts and behaviors. In short, they give us a starting point. For example, one research project showed the majority of people in the 7,000 subject churches were not using their gifts.

For many pastors and leaders this would have come as a shock. Others may say, “That explains a lot.” Either way, it helps pastors and leaders understand reality both for themselves, their church’s leaders, and other members.

Statistics Help Teach People.

Beyond defining reality, statistics can be used to help people understand how the church is engaging or not engaging. Research can demonstrate how the church thinks and why the church responds to certain issues.

Research is often a needed tool pastors can use to change a church’s opinion. If a pastor says, “We should build a gym to help the community” the church might question the expense. But, if the pastor says, “Ten percent of the population within 3 miles of our church are under 17 years old, and most of them have nothing to do after school. If we built a gymnasium we could run multiple ministries to meet their needs and maybe open their hearts to the gospel.” Those statistics paint a different picture that help many understand why the cost might be worth it.

Statistics Help Leaders Make Strategic Decisions.

The first use of statistics helps us define reality by giving us a bases and foundation. The second use of statistics helps us teach people, especially our leaders and members. The third, and probably most important, use of statistics is that they help us make strategic decisions.

If churches understood that one of the reasons why people weren’t using their gifts was because they didn’t know how, the leaders could then make strategic decisions as to howthey should teach their people how to use their gifts. As a result, churches could offer classes, produce material, preach a series, or write a blog series on spiritual gifts with the goal of reversing the statistics by changing the reality.

Statistics can also help determine what staff member to add next, when and where to have small groups, how many groups can be started each new semester, or how demographic changes should change outreach efforts.

In short, statistics are a great tool to assist pastors and leaders in being more effective and leading their churches or organizations to be more effective as well.

> Read more by Ed.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Numbers, statistics, stats

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How Does Church Planting Relate to God’s Mission?

by: Ed Stetzer

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Every church involved in a new church, and every church planter starting one, needs to answer the question: what is church planting?

For some, the word planting comes across as insider language. In the sub-culture of the church planting world there is an entire language mostly unknown to the outside. We’ve all heard of planters talk about “doing a parachute drop church plant,” or “starting with a launch team.” What do these words even mean? More importantly, what is church planting about?

That’s an essential question, really.

Church Planting or Church Starting?

When we talk about church planting it can be a little different than church starting. What’s the difference? Well, I think church starting happens a lot of ways. The most popular church starting strategy involves a group of people getting mad, leaving their home church, and starting another church. In most cases I wouldn’t advise this strategy.

Church planting, on the other hand, involves an individual, mother church, and/or a group of people going out to start a church for the purpose of engaging a community through gospel proclamation and demonstration.

Church plating, unlike church starting, should/must be mission driven.

Church planting grows in the soil of lostness (hence “planting”) where men and women far from God are challenged with the claims of the gospel of Jesus Christ by a group of intentional believers.

Church Planting and Gospel Movements

Church planting is about planting the gospel. And growth in church planting comes from making disciples.

As such, any movement of churches that’s going to be serious about reaching the lost world is going to be involved in church planting. In fact, most of us who write in the field of mission believe that any movement or denomination desiring to grow through conversion should aim for at least a three percent rate of church planting every year. (Take a look– most growing groups and denominations have over that percent and most declining ones have under that percent.)

Think of it this way, if a movement has a hundred churches one year they need to plant three the next year– at the very least.

Church planting is essential to the growth of the Kingdom and the work of Christ through His church. The networks, movements, and denominations that are thriving are thriving because they’re planting new churches. The key thing to remember here is that church planting is reaching lost people through the making of disciples that then gather into congregations.

Planting and the Mission of God

How does church planting relate to the mission of God? The mission of God is bigger than church planting, but it certainly includes church planting. Why? You can’t love Jesus and despise His wife. The church is the bride of Christ, and if you love the work of Christ you love the church.

Now, you and I both know that the church is a mess sometimes. While the church is the stunning bride of Christ, she sometimes looks more like Shrek than she does beautiful. But again, you can’t love Jesus and hate His wife.

Ultimately if you’re going to love the mission of God, you have to love the church of God which is sent out for the mission of God. Ephesians 3:10 tells us God has chosen the church to make known His manifold wisdom. Therefore the church is the tool or instrument of His Kingdom agenda.

If you want to change the world, and if you want to see God at work in the world, plant change agent churches. I think anyone who loves Jesus and His church would, by extension, love and be about the mission of God proclaiming the gospel of Christ– and that is done effectively through church planting.

Conclusion

So is it the mission more than planting?

Yes, it certainly is more than that. Is every church that’s planted necessarily a good thing? No, there are always exceptions, but as a whole, I think church planting is integral to the advance of the Kingdom. And more church plants doing more of what God wants us to do is a good thing.

For this reason I think church planting and multiplication is so essential to the mission of God.

None of our churches should be a cul-de-sac on the Great Commission highway.

Instead, as we plant churches that plant churches that plant churches, the Kingdom advances. The gospel is preached, men and women become believers, churches are formed, and those churches become agents of gospel transformation.

So, want to be missional? Great– just don’t forget church planting.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Church Planting, Ed Stetzer, Missional

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Why Being Fruitful is as Important as Being Faithful

by: Ed Stetzer

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In many corners of the church today, there’s an unhelpful and unhealthy division between theology and practical ministry. This division is damaging to both the discipline of theology and the practice of ministry because one without the other causes an imbalance.

Part of the cause of this division is the large number of theologically-minded people who spurn practicality as pragmatism. This can be seen as an overreaction to the Church Growth Movement of the 1980s.

Such critics rigorously decried a methodological mania as devoid of theological foundation. They took aim at folks like Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and John Maxwell, accusing them of having only a modicum of theology accompanied by mountains of methodology.

Unfortunately, those theologically-minded people concerned with too much practicality, strategy, and leadership, threw the baby out with the bath water. Rather than looking for the proper place of practicality, strategy, and leadership, they found no place for it.

There are theologically-minded people who are producing large bodies of literature attempting rebuff any emphasis on the practical. They are teaching a whole world of people—a whole generation of pastors—that practical ministry, leadership strategies, and coaching don’t matter. I feel like some think practicality in any degree is heretical. It’s ecclesiology that matters, they say. All that matters is theology, they say.

They are creating a division, where no necessary division exists.

Contrary to that line of thinking, you have to consider the effectiveness of your ministry as well. Effectiveness isn’t only measured by the straightness of the angles in your division of the word of truth. Resist the urge to cluck your tongue when the topic turns to statistics and best practices, even if you just want to rush straight to ecclesiology and soteriology.

Honestly, it seems in some instances the “love” for theology is an excuse for failed discipleship, failed attendance growth, or failed discipleship, failed attendance growth, or failed outreach efforts. And, of course, that’s not what they say—they say they are just being faithful. The problem is they are not working in such a way to also be fruitful.

Here’s the danger. If we raise up a generation of theologically-minded people who have no tools for applying it to practical ministry, then reproduction stops. If we become so theological to the neglect of the practical, then ministry will be hindered.

That doesn’t mean we embrace the practical to the neglect of the theological. It’s also dangerous to go too far in the other direction. Practicality cannot be the driving force. Pragmatism cannot be the central focus of what we do. You have to be theologically-minded as well as practical.

Some essentially say, “I just want to do anything I can to reach people for Jesus.” That’s a bad idea. Don’t do anything you can to reach people for Jesus, because then you will end up losing the gospel.

The way we do ministry has to be driven by what we believe about the gospel and about theology. But if all we care about is theology and not how we might best apply theology in the world then we’re not taking seriously the gospel and theology.

> Read more from Ed.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Fruitful, Theology, reproduction

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To Reach Your Community, You Must Fall in Love with Your Community

by: Ed Stetzer

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“Give me Scotland or I die!”

That’s what John Knox said of Scotland. I would say: To fall in love with your community, you have to die–to yourself, to the mission and to your own preferences.

If you are going to reach a community, you need to be deeply in love with it. Jesus, looking down on Jerusalem, cried, “They are like sheep without a shepherd.” We have to say the same, about Plainview, Philadelphia and Pasadena. I am convinced you will not reach a community for Christ unless you are deeply in love with the community and its people.

Think Like a Missionary

I have often called for Christians in our world to think like missionaries in the Two-Thirds World. If you have ever been around a missionary, you know that the good ones all love the people they are sent to–they can’t stop talking about the culture and context.

When missionaries take up residence cross-culturally, they truly love the culture where they live, sometimes even more than the culture back home. In the same way, a person looking to minister in a specific community cannot be disinterested in it. If it is a fishing community, you had better love fishing or learn to love it. If the community has a high school football team, you had better keep up with it. If you are a church leader, the community and its people must have an important part in your heart.

I think you and I need the same passion in our contexts–our own personal “Scotlands”–for the Gospel.

Jesus demonstrated this very concept in His earthly ministry as He: walked with the people in His culture, lived with them, listened to them, told stories to them, welcomed their children, and recognized and met people’s needs.

The Church in Your Head

Too many church leaders read a book or go to a conference and get a great vision of a church in their heads. The problem is, they don’t have a great vision for their community. The catch here is that part of you often has to die. Your own preferences have to be laid down to receive Christ’s call and mission to the community. I don’t care what you like; I care that you love the Gospel and the people God has called you to reach. You may have to die to your desires–to pastoring a cool church in Manhattan or a laid back church in Southern California.

Leading the Church to Love

As a church leader, you must be willing to die to your preferences so your community can be reached with the Gospel, and so must your church. In established churches, this can be even more challenging than personally dying to self. This is because the pastor often already has the vision and burden to reach the community, but the church is comfortable residing in the Christian ghetto insulated from the community. (While maybe not as common, church myopia can also be a problem for planters if the new church is growing primarily by people coming from other churches, most, if not all, of whom already have their own ideas about how church ought to be.)

Reaching a community for Christ is not about you and your preferences. It is more about Jesus and his mission to send you to people. Your goal is what Count Zinzendorf said: “Preach the Gospel, die and be forgotten.”

Until the church dies to its comfort, preferences, wants and desires, it will not be able to reach the community. But like a grain of wheat, it must die so that it may bring new life.

Perhaps we should combine the phrases of Knox and Zinzendorf and say, “Give me Scotland or I die … then let me die and be forgotten.” When that matters most, you’ll die to self, live for His mission and reach your community in ways that are unimaginable.

Read more from Ed here.

Tags: Ed Stetzer, Evangelism, Kingdom Concept

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Rapidly Growing Churches Place a Premium on Intentional and Strategic Leadership

by: Ed Stetzer

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I’m pretty sure that I’ve never met anyone who became a pastor so that they could spend their time worrying about strategy.

Those of us who are pastors and church leaders generally invest in ministry because we love people, not because we love spreadsheets and flowcharts. We love ministry because we want to see people move from where they are to where God wants them to be. There are very few things in life more powerful.

Seeing broken people become whole in and through Jesus really is amazing. However, church leaders do themselves and the churches they lead a huge disservice when they neglect strategy because they are not naturally inclined to it. Many pastors and church leaders are not necessarily strategically inclined, and because of that they ignore it, or intentionally neglect it.

In our research on the largest and fastest growing churches in America, however, we have found that strategy really matters. Churches who are rapidly growing, and who maintain that growth, place a premium on intentional and strategic leadership.

A Strategic Approach

Every year, at LifeWay Research, we pull together data from churches across the country. We collate the data in two ways; the fastest growing churches in the country and the largest churches in the country. This research is usually among the more talked about research we do each year.

Some think we publish this research because we are trying to exalt the large church as the “best” model for doing church. This simply isn’t true. Remember, God used the megachurch to reach Korea and the house church to reach China. Models should be held loosely, and Jesus should be held tightly. We are not convinced the bigger the church is, the better that church is.

We believe that any church that God uses is a great church. With that said, we also believe that facts are our friends. We want to regularly evaluate what God is doing in churches across the country, and one of the ways we do that is through this research.

As we comb through the research each year, we look to see if there are trends that stand out, or similar experiences that are shared by many of the churches who are seeing exciting growth.

Each year we find one or two areas that are unique and, we think, potentially helpful to other pastors and church leaders. This year is no exception. As we looked through the surveys, and interviewed a number of the churches, we saw a common theme of intentional strategy begin to emerge. This is more than just strategy, however, this is strategy in a couple of very specific areas – areas which might have received a bit less emphasis in the past.

We noticed that churches were intentionally investing strategic energies in groups ministry and sermon prep this year in a way that seems to be growing in popularity over the past few years. This matters because strategy is sorely lacking from many American churches. In a recent LifeWay Research study, among the pastors we surveyed, only 42% believed that their groups have a well-defined approach. Even worse than that, over half of all pastors we surveyed have no intentional plan for discipling all ages in their church.

This lack of consistent strategy in our churches is killing our disciple-making.

Group Strategy

Christ Church of the Valley – Phoenix, AZ

One church that is seeing God move in powerful ways is Christ Church of the Valley in the greater Phoenix area. They come in at #8 in the Largest Churches list and #91 in the Fastest Growing list. Started in 1982, they have grown to over 21,000 each weekend and meet across the Phoenix metro on 5 different campuses.

As a church, they would appear to be the definition of success, at least according to many. In spite of that, however, they recently underwent a pretty significant change in their group strategy. Formerly they used a fairly typical groups strategy with people grouped together by affinity. Additionally they would have a variety of ministries meeting throughout the week on their campus. While these ministry avenues generated a lot of people and activity, they were not sure they were helping the church actually accomplish its mission of, “win, train and send.”

Ashley Wooldridge, who is the Executive Pastor at Christ Church described their group gatherings as one “holy huddle” after another. He went on to say, “We would find groups of people that we liked and we would drive out of our neighborhoods, past all the neighbors that we knew did not know Jesus, and did not go to church” on their way to meet with their affinity-based small group. This lack of missional intentionality led the church leadership to reconsider their strategy. They arrived at a place where they were frustrated by their lack of missional effectiveness. “We are tired of saying that we want to reach our neighborhoods and change our culture yet really not strategically doing something about it.”

They completely shut down their affinity-based small group strategy. Instead, they launched a new groups ministry that is based on neighborhood. Every person in the church is encouraged to engage in a group that meets in their basic geographic area.

They are so committed to this strategy that Wooldridge tells us they don’t have any groups that exist today that would not be meeting in the neighborhood that the people live in. What is more, they eliminated all other larger groups that used to meet on their campus. Groups like women’s ministry, men’s ministry, single’s ministry no longer happen in lieu of everyone meeting in their neighborhood.

This combination of simplification and strategic discipleship strategy has served to promote relational discipleship as people now live in proximity with those they are growing in Christ with. It helps promote mission, as they can easily invite non-believers in their community to meet with their group, which is also in their community.

Wooldridge goes on to highlight that this has changed their approach to mission. “We found that it is a lot easier for a Christian to go overseas for Africa for a week, beat their chest, come back, feeling really good that they did something great, and then drive into their neighborhoods, while all the people around us that we know are not going to heaven with us.”

This change in strategy has unleashed the people in their church to grow as disciples, and to serve their community on mission. Wooldridge noted that they still send people around the world on mission, but this strategic change has exponentially increased their influence in their immediate area.

Though Wooldridge did not mention this, but my observation would be that they also enabled their large church to become smaller, and approachable, by multiplying through this neighborhood approach. Their intentional strategy has freed them up to serve people more effectively, allowing the Great Commission to go out and disciples to be made.

Real Life Church – Valencia, CA

Another church that is strategically positioning themselves to better disciple the people entrusted to them is the Real Life Church of Valencia, CA. Real Life Church is #93 on the Largest Churches list and #41 on the fastest growing list.

Real Life Church is working to strategically position themselves to see people’s lives transformed. While Christ Church of the Valley uses a streamlined, neighborhood strategy, Real Life Church is using a different strategy, focused on a variety of discipleship options, to help their people grow to be like Jesus.

Brennan Conklin, their Executive Director of Ministry explains their discipleship group strategy is divided into four segments. They offer Life Groups, Celebrate Recovery, Care Communities and affinity groups as a means for people to be discipled. Life Groups are companions to their weekend worship experiences, and meet in homes, with most people attending one in their basic geographic area.

Celebrate Recovery has become a major part of their groups strategy. Inviting people in who have any number of “hurts, habits and hang-ups,” they are seeing large numbers of people gather, on their campus, each week.

Care Communities are based off various topics and provide discipleship opportunities for people who have had their life turned upside down and are struggling with issues such as cancer, divorce, financial struggle, etc.

Finally, affinity groups gather around specific affinities such as men’s ministry or women’s ministry. This multi-faceted ministry allows them to offer opportunities to people wherever they are, and whatever stage they are in. Conlkin says that, while they offer many opportunities on their campus, they have a strategic push to offer many of these discipleship opportunities off campus for missional reasons. “We don’t want to see these kinds of discipleship paths be taken away from the neighborhood because of all of the people [there].”

While their four discipleship pathways are intentional, they are also highly relational and exist to serve people. In fact, Conklin describes their pathways as a means to help people assume more responsibility for their own discipleship. “Through these options, you are helping people take ownership of their following of Jesus.”

This effort to strategically enable their congregation to own their discipleship progress is an encouraging sign.

>>Read more from Ed.

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Tags: Ed Stetzer, Intentional Strategy

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