Rethinking Church Planting

by: Trevin Wax

1

Tweet

Jimmy Scroggins is a pastor friend of mine. He currently serves at First Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Jimmy is passionate about church planting in multiple forms and is involved in a mission network called SendSFL. I’m excited to see new methods of church planting that can supplement and support traditional planting strategies. Today, Jimmy joins me on the blog for a discussion about the future of church planting.

Trevin Wax: One of the things we’ve talked about before is how the church planting structure in North America puts the planter under enormous pressure to attract givers to the new plant, not necessarily new converts. Elaborate a little on how you think our structure and strategy can unintentionally hinder passionate evangelism.

Jimmy Scroggins: First, I want to be clear that I have huge admiration for church planters. Their boldness and confidence in God to go out and start a church from scratch is amazing to me. I am also a strong supporter of church planting churches and organizations, and I am truly grateful for the current wave of resources that is being directed towards new church starts in North America.

Trevin Wax: That said, you have some misgivings about some church planting strategies.

Jimmy Scroggins: Yes. I worry that our standard strategy for funding planters is unlikely to start the number of sustainable, evangelistic, healthy congregations needed to advance the kingdom relative to the growing population and increasing lostness of our culture. The favored approach seems to go like this:

1. Identify a talented, driven, and probably well-networked planter.
2. Help him raise several hundred thousand dollars to fund him and his church for 3-5 years.
3. Count on him to lead his new church to grow fast enough so that by the time his funding runs out his church is self-supporting.

Trevin Wax: What’s is deficient about this strategy?

Jimmy Scroggins: The math simply does not work. Take Southern Baptists, for example. We are working to plant 15,000 churches in North America by 2022. If we are going to raise 100k each (a pretty conservative number for most contemporary church planters) to fund those churches, we are going to invest 1.5 billion dollars in the successful church plants (if you make it 300K per church – that makes it $4.5 billion).  Assuming a 70% success rate (which would be phenomenal to the point of unrealistic), we would have tried to start around 21K churches, with a total investment of over $2 billion.  I am afraid the math simply doesn’t work if we are hoping to plant that many churches in that amount of time.

Trevin Wax: Besides the math, what concerns do you have?

Jimmy Scroggins: I’m afraid this strategy forces the church planter to focus on attracting givers more than on evangelizing lost people. It really doesn’t matter how many lost people he reaches or baptizes; his sustainability and “success” will be evaluated and celebrated only if his fledgling congregation gives enough money.

The planter’s ability to remain “in business” is directly tied to his ability to shift the costs from his sponsor churches to his own congregation before his startup money is exhausted. It is unlikely that new believers will be able to carry that load fast enough. He has to go hard after transfers from other churches in order to make it work. So again, the focus of the church planter almost has to be on attracting givers as opposed to reaching lost people.

Trevin Wax: So where do we go from here? Your church, while certainly intentional about funding traditional church plants, is also involved in other kinds of gatherings. Tell us about that.

Jimmy Scroggins: As you said, we are indeed participating in traditional church plants, and by traditional I mean the funded approach with full-time planters and some type of “launch-large” strategy. But we are convinced that these types of plants take too long, cost too much and fail too often – at least if we are going to get to 15,000 by 2022. We have begun to develop and invest in two different approaches that we believe will be more effective, especially in metropolitan contexts where Southern Baptists have been weak.

First, we are going all in for bivocational church planting.  We are working to identify, recruit, train, and place men in new church plants who will never require a full-time salary from their church.  There are scores of white collar, middle and upper income, educated, successful professionals in our churches who have untapped capacity in terms of their time and energy. These guys can be motivated and equipped to plant churches. Of course, God has to call them, but we can help them hear God speak.

Previous generations of church and denominational leaders have basically said:

“If you are called to the ministry, you quit your job, you move your family several states away for seminary-based training, you learn to live in near poverty, and you help your wife and kids adjust to their new life and their new standard of living in their new town. And about the time you get halfway settled into the seminary community – you graduate and move again to a small church in a small place and begin your journey in ministry.”

No wonder very few people will voluntarily heed the call!

We believe there is a better way. We want to train church planters from our own church to plant new churches in our own community. They don’t have to move their families. They don’t have to find new jobs. They don’t have to strike out on their own. We can pour into them, help them develop their spiritual gifts, help them discover their unique calling, help them find a neighborhood that needs a gospel church, and ultimately help them form a church planting team.

Trevin Wax: What experience have you had in developing the bivocational church planting strategy?

Jimmy Scroggins: At First Baptist Church of West Palm Beach, we have established a church planting residency program to equip bivocational church planters from our church family. The response has been overwhelming. We have ten men in our first cohort this year, and the waiting list for the 2013 group is already established.

We are pretty excited about bivocational church planting because it is a way to help make the math work. Although these churches will look very much like traditional, funded church plants, we believe they will have a greater chance of success because the pastors will not have to depend on the fledgling church as their sole source of financial support.

Trevin Wax: What’s the other approach you take?

Jimmy Scroggins: We are committed to reaching people that most church plants cannot afford to reach. There are thousands of people in our community who are homeless or very poor. Many are immigrants and many are in our community illegally. Traditional church planters can’t spend time reaching these folks. They can’t give enough to support the new work. But we have recently discovered a way to effectively go after these people.

One of our sister churches in West Palm is teaching us how to plant “rabbit churches” (so named because they multiply really fast). This church uses lay people to start new congregations in homeless camps, trailer parks, apartment complexes, and retirement centers. We are learning from this approach, and we are seeking to plant churches for “the least of these.”

A “rabbit church” looks like a middle-aged deacon pulling up to the homeless camp with metal folding chairs stacked in his pickup. He arranges those chairs around a tree and calls the men and women out for donuts, singing, and Bible study. These people can’t or won’t give much money at all, but since this type of church doesn’t cost anything, they make budget every single week.

Trevin Wax: How will these methods affect the future of church planting?

Jimmy Scroggins: We are convinced that these two approaches – using bivocational planters to start traditional-looking church plants, and using lay-preachers to start “rabbit churches” – could be the future of church planting. And since these two strategies are very similar to effective approaches found in the Bible and throughout church history, we are confident they are going to work.

One thing’s for sure: traditional, funded, full-time church planters are not going to plant enough churches to truly penetrate the lostness of North America.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Church Planting, Jimmy Scroggins, Multiplication, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Process >

The Theology of Christmas Songs in Your Church

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

It’s quite possible that non-Christians hear more Christian theology around Christmas-time than any other time of the year. A number of Christmas songs are filled with rich theological truths.

Take the popular “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing.” It’s chock-full of robust truths from God’s Word.

But I wonder how many non-Christians really understand what they’re singing. Or even how many Christians understand these lyrics!

Take, for example, the line “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.” That simply means “Look and see God, hidden in human flesh,” see God in the Person of Jesus.

Then comes “Hail the incarnate Deity.” Deity, of course, means divine One, God Himself. Incarnate means “enfleshed.”

Look at the next two lines: “Pleased as man with men in flesh to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.” There’s that word again—”Emmanuel,” God with us. Jesus is our “God with us.” We know who God is because of Jesus. We know what God is like because of Jesus.

This verse is supposed to set up the miracle of the incarnation by letting you see Christ in all His glory coming as baby Jesus in that humble stable.

Look at the pure, sinless Jesus being born to a mother under questionable circumstances.

Look at the Maker of the universe being denied space in the inn, having to occupy the space of a stable.

Look at Christ being adored by all of heaven, and then see Him in a stinky feeding trough flanked by animals.

Part of the glory of the incarnation is holding that tension in your mind. It gives you a window into how great God’s love is, that He would take on human flesh for us and our salvation.

Pause and Reflect

What do the humble circumstances of Christ’s birth tell us about the nature and character of God?

How should our exercise of power and authority change in light of the humility of Christ?

– from one of the devotionals I contributed to The Gospel Project Christmas

Tags: Christmas, Scripture, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

5 Leadership Lessons from Abraham Lincoln

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

When I discovered a new movie on the life of Lincoln was in the works, I was curious to learn more about Lincoln’s administration and his political career. The fhit movie is based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s popular book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, a masterful telling of Lincoln’s story that follows the lives of each of his cabinet members.

Here are a few leadership lessons from the life of Lincoln as described in the book.

Lesson #1: Know When to Act and When to Wait.

Lincoln knew when to speak and when to remain silent. He knew when to act and when to wait.

In reading the book, I found myself on occasion wanting Lincoln to hurry up and make a decision, only to later discover that making his views public too soon would have sabotaged his chances for seeing lasting change. Whether he was hiring or firing, giving speeches or staying silent, he had an uncanny ability to gauge public opinion. He usually waited for the public to catch up with him before making pronouncements.

At the same time, Lincoln wasn’t afraid to lead. When he knew his actions would likely sway more people to his point of view, he got out in front of them and acted. But he only did so when he was sure he wouldn’t lose the people lagging behind. He was keenly aware of what Malcolm Gladwell called “the tipping point.”

Lesson #2: Don’t Take Things Personally.

Lincoln was hard to offend even when offense was warranted. For example, consider the brashness of General McClellan, who once kept Lincoln and secretary of state William Seward waiting in his parlor until he decided he wasn’t up for visitors and went to bed. As the reader, I wanted to climb into the pages and get in McClellan’s face to yell, “This is the president of the United States!”

Likewise, when cabinet member Salmon Chase undermined Lincoln and sought in vain to replace him on the Republican ticket in 1864, Lincoln shrugged off Chase’s ambitions, saying, “He has the White House fever.” Not only did he choose not to begrudge Chase’s antics, Lincoln later recommended him for the Supreme Court as Chief Justice.

And who can forget William Seward’s arrogant snubbing of his future boss? Seward received more than forgiveness; he received a lifelong friendship.

Though others were astonished at Lincoln’s forgiving spirit, Lincoln knew his responsibilities were too important to let personal squabbles keep him from the task at hand. By not seeking to establish his honor, Lincoln became all the more honorable.

Lesson #3: Be Strategic in Your Diversions.

Some cabinet members muttered about Lincoln’s frequent attendance at the theatre. The times were too serious for such trivial pursuits, they thought.

But Lincoln chose to be refreshed precisely because the times were serious. Compare pictures of Lincoln during the first year of his presidency compared to the last. It’s obvious the horror of war and the personal loss of a child weighed heavily on him.

To maintain his vibrant spirit, Lincoln planned a daily carriage ride every afternoon with his wife – a few precious moments to unwind and hear of other things. He frequented the theatre, where he would lose himself in the humorous plays and musicals of the day. It was because Lincoln took his job so seriously that he looked for ways to relieve the pressure of his office.

Lesson #4: Tell a Story and Paint a Picture.

Lincoln’s oratorical skills are legendary, but not everyone in his day was impressed. Many thought he was a hick, a country “railsplitter” from Illinois who wouldn’t amount to much as president.

But Lincoln knew the power of a story. That’s why his speeches are full of analogies, pictures, and anecdotes. Being a “commoner” was a badge of honor that helped him communicate to the men who gave their lives on the battlefield, the families who buried their young, and the slaves who desired their freedom.

Lincoln had plenty of practice in story-telling. His humor is well-documented by his contemporaries. He kept his kids up at night with tales of adventure. Though pictures often show him looking dour and depressed, the real Lincoln was a jovial man who knew the power of a story.

Lesson #5: Do the Right Thing Even When It is Costly.

There are times when Lincoln was under enormous pressure to fire members of his cabinet, to make changes in personnel, or to hold back on issues related to emancipation. Lincoln could have succumbed easily to outside pressure. Quick decisions might have given him immediate popularity.

But Lincoln understood the fickle nature of politics and refused to bow to the heat of the moment. He decided to do the right thing and accept the fallout. He took responsibility for his administration’s mistakes even when his subordinates were at fault. At personal cost to himself, Lincoln chose the high road, sometimes paying for it in initial political strategy, only to find respect from his countrymen increasing over time.

Conclusion

Lincoln was a great president because he was a great man. Team of Rivals shines light on the wisdom of his strategies and decisions.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Leadership Development, Team, Team of Rivals, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Leadership >

3 Questions to Ask of Your Sermon

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

There has been a lot of talk in recent years about making the gospel announcement of Jesus Christ front and center in our preaching and teaching. As our society becomes increasingly post-Christian, it is critical for us to not assume lost people know who God is, what He is like, and what He has done for us. We need to be clear in what we teach, with a laser-like focus on Jesus Christ our Savior.

But how do we make sure that Jesus is center-stage in our church?

How do we keep other things from taking His place in our sermons, our Sunday School classes or our small groups?

In other words, how do we maintain Christ-centeredness when there are so many other good things vying for our attention and time?

As editor of The Gospel Project, I’ve wrestled with this question. It’s one thing to have “core values” like “Christ-centered” and “mission-driven” written on the page. It’s another thing entirely to make sure that these values are actually expressed in the lessons. To help our writers, we’ve put together three big questions we want them to ask of every lesson.

The more I’ve thought about these questions, the more I am convinced that pastors ought to ask these questions of every sermon they preach. Teachers ought to ask these questions of every lesson they prepare. The questions are a helpful guide to keeping Christ as the focus of our ministry.

1. How does this topic/passage fit into the big story of Scripture?

It’s not uncommon anymore for me to talk with lost people who have little, if any, knowledge of the Bible. Surprisingly, I even meet church-goers who know individual Bible stories and some of the morals taught in the Bible, but don’t know how they connect to the gospel. They don’t know the overarching storyline of the Bible that leads from creation, to our fall into sin, to redemption through Jesus Christ, and final restoration.

If we are to live as Christians in a fallen world, we must be shaped by the grand narrative of the Scriptures, the worldview we find in the Bible.

Asking the “big story” question will help you as a pastor or teacher to connect the dots for your people. We need to help people learn to read the Bible for themselves, to understand the flow of the narrative, how the different genres fit into that narrative, and how to apply the truths of the Bible with wisdom.

2. What is distinctively Christian about the way I am addressing the topic/passage?

Here’s the question that will lead you back to the gospel. The distinctively Christian thing about Christianity is Jesus and His grace. It’s the good news about how He died on the cross for our sins and rose from the grave on the third day.

So how do we ensure that our preaching and teaching gets to Jesus? I suggest three follow-up questions under this one.

• Is there anything about my treatment of this Old Testament text that a faithful Jew could not affirm?

If we preach the story of Moses, for example, without ever pointing forward to our Passover Lamb (Jesus Christ), then we are preaching the Old Testament much like a rabbi, not like a Christian herald of the gospel. On the road to Emmaus, Jesus told His disciples that the Old Testament pointed to Him. The Baptist Faith and Message says “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ.”

So when we preach from the Old Testament, it’s imperative that we point people forward to the Messiah.

• Is there anything about my treatment of this New Testament text that a Mormon could not affirm?

Ed Stetzer often says that this is one of the questions he asks of every sermon he preaches. The issue isn’t whether or not you talk about Jesus. Mormons talk about Jesus. Jehovah’s Witnesses talk about Jesus. Self-help preachers talk about Jesus.

The question here is about how we present Jesus. Is He Savior and Lord? Or is He just a helper? Is He God in the flesh? Or is He just a good teacher?

We must make sure we do not present Jesus only as a moral example, but that we present Him as the only Savior, the One who calls for repentance and faith.

• Is there anything in my application that an unbeliever off the street would be uncomfortable with?

We’re not asking this question from the seeker-sensitive perspective that wants to alleviate any discomfort. We’re asking this question from the perspective of the pastor who wants to make sure that application goes beyond “be nice.”

In other words, if the application at the end of your message is “Husbands, love your wives,” we should ask: Would an unbeliever have a problem with that? Probably not. We could survey people from different religions and they’d probably agree that husbands ought to love their wives.

So how do we tighten up this application to focus on Jesus? By doing what Paul did. By saying, “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.”

When we tell people to forgive, we ought to ground it in the gospel: forgiving one another, “as Christ loved and forgave you.”

When we tell people to be generous, we ought to ground it in the gospel: “for Christ, though He was rich, became poor for your sakes.”

Ground your application in the gospel.

3. How does this truth equip God’s church to live on mission?

There is no true gospel-centeredness that does not lead to mission, because the gospel is the story of a God with a missionary heart, a Father who desires that all come to repentance, a Shepherd who seeks and saves the one lost sheep.

The purpose of God’s Word is to reveal God and His plan to us, in order that we might then be empowered to fulfill His Great Commission. God’s plan is that people from every tongue, tribe and nation would bring glory to Him. When we study the Bible, we ought to see it in light of its purpose – to equip us to be God’s missionaries in our communities and around the world.

Be clear!

If there’s one thing we need to be clear about in our preaching and teaching, it’s the gospel announcement that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lived a perfect life in our place, died on the cross for the sins of the world, rose again to launch God’s new creation, and is now exalted as Lord of the world. In response to this message, we must call people to repent and believe. And as Christians, we must continue living every day in repentant faith, witnessing to the love of our great God.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Scripture, Trevin Wax, Worship

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

Gospel, Culture, and Mission: An Interview with Tim Keller

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

Tim Keller’s new book, Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City may be the most important book he has written. It’s the size of a textbook because of how expansive its vision is. These 400 pages capture the essence of Keller’s theological vision, worked out over decades of pastoral ministry in New York City. As I read the book, I had to keep sharpening pencils because of my extensive underlining.

Today, I welcome Tim to the blog for a conversation about some of the important topics addressed in Center Church. 

Trevin Wax: Tim, you speak of “gospel renewal” as something bestowed by the Spirit and also something we work toward. How would you define “gospel renewal” and how do we seek something only God can give?

Tim Keller: We who are Calvinists that believe in the free offer of the gospel regularly ask people to seek something only God can give. Not only would we say only God can give salvation, but we would say that you can’t even want salvation unless God gives it. Yet we call people to repent and believe. I see no reason why we can’t call people to seek gospel renewal and revival even though only God can give it.

If you look back at theologians who have written on revival, they wrestle with this very issue. Is it merely something you can pray for (which, by the way, is something you are doing to seek revival), or are there other things you can do (like recover clear gospel preaching, etc.)?

As in all ministry, a balance must be struck between pessimistic passivity on the one hand and the frantic assumption that you can create revival on the other.

Trevin Wax: In a recent comment on your book, Scot McKnight described your definition of the gospel as thoroughly “soterian” – meaning, it is focused on individual salvation that comes by grace through faith. In your defense, I’d say you give significant space to unpacking the gospel’s implications in light of Christ’s lordship.

Why is it important to keep individual salvation at the center of our thinking about the gospel? And do you sense a tension between a focus on individual salvation and the resurrection-centered, kingship-focused sermons we see in Acts?

Tim Keller: Scot and I disagree on this. But yes, I do think individual salvation needs to be kept central.

In Romans 8 Paul speaks of the renewal of creation—its liberation from decay—something that shows that ultimately God’s salvation means the renewal of the whole world, not just the salvation of individual souls. Yet in verse 21 Paul says that the creation will be brought into our freedom and glory as children of God—the glory that we as individuals have received through faith in Jesus Christ.

So rather than saying—as many do—that the main point of the gospel is cosmic salvation, and our individual salvation(s) are just part of that, it might be more accurate to say it’s the other way around. It may be that cosmic renewal is a fruit of our individual, personal salvation.

Because I read Romans 8 the way I do—I see substitutionary atonement and justification as not something that comes along with the bigger story but as the point of the spear of the Big Story.

Trevin Wax: You argue that in our evangelistic efforts, we should put forth a compelling challenge of competing worldviews. Along these lines, you recommend distinguishing between a culture’s “A” doctrines from its “B” doctrines as we make a case for Christianity. Can you elaborate on what you mean by “A” and “B” doctrines? 

Tim Keller: What I mean is that a genuinely persuasive argument does not merely tell you that you are wrong about everything. It doesn’t just beat on you from the outside. It comes inside your belief system, as it were, and affirms something you believe strongly. And then it says—well if you believe this (A) then why in the world can’t you see that B is true?

So for example when speaking to a group of atheists who believe strongly in human rights, you make the case that if we simply evolved by accident there is no scientific or other basis for a belief that every human being is equal in dignity—in fact, science gives evidence of the opposite. Then you conclude “if your premise (that there is no God) leads you to conclude something you know isn’t true (that human beings do not all have equal rights and dignity) then why not change your premise?” If you take time to listen to persuasive arguments, you will see they usually do this.

Trevin Wax: I benefited from the balance on display in your explanation of four common ways many Christians relate to culture (Transformationists, Relevants, Counterculturalists, Two Kingdoms). At the end of this section, you left the question open-ended, advocating for different strategies based on cultural context and personal giftings. How did you come to the conclusion that all four views have strengths and weaknesses that need to be held in tension with the others?

Tim Keller: Don Carson’s book Christ and Culture Revisited looks at the 5 models of Christ-and-culture laid out by Niebuhr. They don’t perfectly line up with my four, but Don’s argument was that outside of the “Christ of Culture” model (the view of older Liberal Christianity) all the models had biblical warrant, yet that meant that any of the models taken too exclusively would be leaving out the biblical insights of the other models.

So in the end I say that you should choose the model that seems to best fit your time, place, and personal affinities, but be very careful to use the insights and tools of the other models to keep yourself from imbalance.

Trevin Wax: The term “missional” is often used today in a variety of ways – some of which contradict each other. You maintain a place for the word “missional,” but want to be specific about what it means and does not mean. How would you define “missional?”

Tim Keller: I think that the word “missional” is useful because it means something more (though not less) than being very evangelistic. It means recognizing the post-Christian character of our western society, and revamping everything we do in accord with that.

We no longer have cultural institutions imparting respect for the Bible and the church in the general population so that the average person:

1. pays attention to the church,
2. seeks it out for milestone moments like baptisms, weddings, funerals, and
3. understands what you mean by terms like God, sin, heaven, hell, right and wrong.

This means revamping how you preach, how you instruct, how you evangelize—everything. Notice how differently Paul (in Acts) preached to pagans than he did in synagogues where people were steeped in the Scripture.

So I’m not ready to abandon the term missional.  There are very different views of how to be the church now in our post-Christian culture, but we should be making the effort rather than simply doing business as usual.

Trevin Wax: There is a current discussion going on in gospel-centered circles about the “mission of the church,” and particularly, the nature of “making disciples.” What aspects of this discussion have encouraged you? How would you weigh in and speak to some of the deficiencies you see in this discussion?

Tim Keller: I’m good with saying that the mission of the church is basically to “make disciples.” I like it because it safeguards the centrality of what the church alone can really do—bring people to faith in Christ. But I might differ with others on what those disciples look like.

I’d say you haven’t discipled someone if they only have been equipped to evangelize and bring people to church.  If they are truly discipled, they must be motivated and equipped to love their neighbors, to do justice and mercy.  And they also must be equipped to integrate their faith with their work, namely, to engage culture.

One problem I see is that many churches that insist that the church’s job is to only to make disciples do virtually nothing to help disciples grow in these areas, even though it is clearly part of the biblical job description for individual believers.  Put another way—the job of the institutional church gathered is not to change social structures/culture, but to create disciples (who comprise the ‘organic’ church dispersed) who will change social structures and the culture.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Gospel, Scripture, Tim Keller, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

The Church as Creature of the Word, Part 4

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

Session 3 – Matt Chandler

God saves people, and it’s not always the same circumstances around conversion. The beauty of conversion is to see people saved in Sunday School or saved out of a strip club.

1. He calls us to be worshippers.

But what happens next? Worship in spirit and truth. Worship that is above the shoulders (informed by who God is, what He does, information about the living God that fuels worship). Worship is also below the shoulders (with passion, fervency, a glad heart).

If we’ve got any hope at all of being teams that lead in a way that is healthy, vibrant, and life-transforming, we’d better be worshippers in spirit and truth. Your people will be drawn to what you are most passionate about. Are you a worshipper? Does Jesus excite you? Or has ministry gotten rote and routine for you?

No matter how much you talk about leading teams and strategies, if you don’t have in your heart a love for Jesus and the desire to make much of Him, you’ll go off the rails quickly.

You can do everything we’re doing at our church and learn best practices and see nothing happen somewhere else. The Holy Spirit trusts people who just love Jesus. Massive growth is not always success. Do you have affections for the Lord, enjoying getting to know Him? Or are you in the text just because you have to be in the text?

The undershepherd must love the Good Shepherd.

2. He calls us to one another.

Let love be genuine, without hypocrisy. 

Hypocrisy is pretending to be more than you are, or pointing out the flaws of others so you feel better about yourself.

Abhor what is evil. Love is willing to engage an erring brother or sister. Genuine love says, “I think you are in danger.” It is not cruel to point out danger in the lives of others. You’re not a bad parent to not let your kid play in the street. It means you’re a loving parent.

Love one another with a brotherly affection...

The reason Paul is writing this text is because the church in Rome is not living this way. Be encouraged! The kinds of things your church is dealing with are the things Paul dealt with.

Your staff’s interaction with each other goes a long way in cultivating the culture of your church.

Questions for your team:

• How are you organizationally doing this (outdoing one another in love and good deeds)?
• Lead pastor, how open are you with other staff members? Are you isolated? To remove yourself from the trenches and retreat to books and study will take away the sharp edge of leading your people well.
• Does your staff do things together as friends after hours? Are there organic gatherings of people on your team? Life, not complaining. Celebrating what God is doing in your church. Foster that. Encourage that.

3. God calls us as servants. 

The gospel is not only the foundation for our service; it also radically purifies our motivation for service. We serve because Jesus has served us.

Pastors, are you modeling for your people a heart of servanthood? Kingdom hands are dirty hands.

If you walk in entitlement, you will simply create a sense of entitlement beneath you that leads to an entitled staff, and an entitled leadership, an entitled congregation that leads to the death of the church.

A healthy church, a healthy culture reproduces. The creature of the Word multiplies. Church planting, missions, etc. The more clingy you are about what’s yours the more you show your own culture and the desire to feel good about yourself.

There will be a day when no one cares about a big church name or your pastor heroes. How eagerly do you celebrate the success of other churches in your area? How easy is it for you to critique those churches?

Do you celebrate the kingdom? Or do you celebrate your kingdom?

Do you acknowledge that God is working in streams other than your own?

The more you think the ministry is about you, the more exhausted and weary you will become. The more you recognize the ministry is about Jesus, the more freeing you will feel.

The downward turn of our culture will shrink and purify the church, as people who are into church but not into Jesus will leave. Out of that, there is hope that God will do spectacular things. We will work for genuine gospel community to shine, as we serve one another in a way that confuses and attracts the world around us.

Read the prior posts in this series here: Part 1; Part 2; Part 3.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Connect, Scripture, Serve, Trevin Wax, Worship

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

The Church as Creature of the Word, Part 3

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

How do we practically get consumer driven churches to shift their “culture” to experience transformation and to become a Creature of the Word?

Part 3 of this series, The Church as Creature of the Word, continues with a discussion among authors Eric Geiger, Matt Chandler, and Josh Patterson.

Josh: Truth be told, our church has a lot of consumers too. The irony is that the more we hit the consumeristic culture, the more people come to consume that message. This is a battle in the culture of our society, not just our church. The great thing is, God has brought transformation. People say, “I once was this, but now I’m moving towards this.” You always want people to walk away with the aura of Christ, not the personality of the person witnessing.

Matt: If you’re the lead pastor, what you’ve got to do is point to things that are of first importance. I want to bring as much attention to Jesus Christ as I can – not to me, not to us, not to our church, etc. There’s a certain baseline for comfort here. I want us to be lean as we seek to plant other churches and point people outside of us.

If you’re on staff or a lay person at a consumer driven church, know this: almost everyone has an opinion on what the pastor ought to be doing. Adding your voice probably won’t get you anywhere. People I listen to are people who I know love me and are in the trenches with me. They’re not in the stands judging how I’m fighting, but they’re fighting along with me. Be your pastor’s biggest fan. Serve him and walk alongside him and then float him stuff. There’s a way to respect and honor the position while being honest about what you hope God will accomplish through him in that place.

For guys considering joining church staffs, you’re not hired to set culture or theological positions. Deflect as much as you can and point to Jesus always about everything.

How do you bring about change when a practice is no longer effective, but for some, is a matter of theology?

Eric: Theology, philosophy, and practice matter, but that doesn’t mean you’ll have the same culture in every church. Think in terms of a house. The foundation is theology. The philosophy is the walls of the church. It needs to be in harmony with the theology, but there is some freedom in the philosophy of the church. “What are we going to value most?” You can move the walls in your house, but it’s hard and takes time. The practice is the finishing and furniture. You can move it around. You’ve got freedom.

What are we changing? Theology? Philosophy or practice? We need to know the difference. For philosophy, we need to know that it’s challenging. We’re moving the walls. To do it in a healthy way, you have to tie the philosophical change to the theology. We’re making a shift philosophically because of this, because of what we believe. 

You can dissect the culture by looking at heroes and stories. You can change a culture by heroes and stories. Is Jesus the hero of the church? What is celebrated is cultivated. Point to the things you want to see happen more. Celebrate the stories of people living on mission, living in community, etc.

Josh: I think this is the pivotal piece of the book. If there’s a disconnect between the theology and practice, then the people don’t know how to put the pieces together.

Eric: The older we get, the more humbled we are. When you “move the walls,” affirm anything that is affirmable. Find values in the former culture you want to move over to the new culture, brag on them, and show how they’ll be better realized in the new culture. Affirm the past. Don’t just assume that everything is broken. Point from the wall to the foundation. “You built this because you believed this. We’re going to build another wall because we share the same heartbeat.” Then, have the discipline to stick with it despite the criticism.

Matt: Every church is different. Wisdom is, “you honor what is old.” You talk about opportunity rather than making it seem like everything is broken and doesn’t work. I know young guys who make things worse by their rhetoric, ignorance, and arrogance. We refused to “pasture” the older saints. We had coffee with older men and said, “We need you.” We moved as slowly as we could, to honor the past while pushing forward into the future. Don’t define yourself by what you’re not. Have a compelling vision of what Christ is calling us to do.

What is a resource for examining what your church culture is? 

Eric: We’re going to launch in January on the Creature of the Word FaceBook page an annual audit. We’ll go through it for a year, making it private, but helping church leaders assess the culture of their church over a year.

This series concludes with Part 4. You can read the previous parts of the series here: Part 1; Part 2.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Church Transformation, Eric Geiger, Josh Patterson, Matt Chandler, Scripture, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

The Church as Creature of the Word, Part 2

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

Part 2 of a conversation with authors Eric Geiger, Matt Chandler, and Josh Patterson about their recent book, The Church as Creature of the Word.

This post is features Eric Geiger, vice-president of the Church Resources Division at LifeWay.

Eric is putting forth a leadership challenge about the atmosphere and culture of your church.

Opening illustration: The culture of mountain climbers at Mount Everest. It takes weeks and months of planning and preparation. The mountain-climbing culture turned bad. A man, David Sharp, was hiking his way back down from Everest, through the “death zone.” He sits down to rest in Green Boots Cave (named for a man who perished there with green boots). 40 mountain climbers making the ascent, seeking to achieve their dream, pass by David Sharp, who is dying. All 40 passed by him, but left him to die in order to not abandon their journey. The mountain climbing community was riveted by the events. Some blamed systems (lack of evacuation plans, rescue teams, etc.). But the founder of Everest mountain climbing said it was the culture of the mountain climbing community that was wrong.

You can tell what is of first importance, not by looking at the confession, but at the culture. It’s not your confession of faith of your church, but the culture of your church that reveals what is of first importance.

There’s a difference between simply believing the gospel in your confessional statement and standing on the gospel in your church culture.

Culture is massively important. It’s the overpowering alpha male in the room. If there is a conflict between your confession and your culture, the culture typically wins.

If your confession says the grace of Jesus is big enough for any issue or any sin, but your culture is closed and cold and looks with disdain on people who open up about their struggles, then people needing grace will not find it.

If the confession says we will live as missionaries, but the culture of the church determines success by how many events take place at the building in a week, then the culture will trump the confession.

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” – Peter Drucker

Your church’s culture is your church’s personality. It’s the values and shared beliefs that drive the behavior of your people.

The church in Galatia is a good example. They drifted from their confession in their culture. Any time we seek to supplement the grace of God, we supplant the grace of God. They moved toward a culture of creating “levels of righteousness.”

A true, healthy church culture has alignment between the confession and the practice of the people.

You’ve got to inspect your church, to see if the gospel has made its way into the fabric of the church. An example: Budgeting season. Discussions about giving are good. Is the gospel impacting that discussion? If people are not being generous, then perhaps the culture is drifting from our confession that “though He was rich, He became poor for your sake.”

Another example: You need volunteers for children’s ministry, etc. You can do a campaign and a ministry fair. But what if we should first ask, “What’s the culture of our church?” Have we brought people back to the reality that God stepped onto this earth, grabbed a basin and a towel, and served us by washing our dirty feet?

The need is to come back to the gospel in order to influence the culture of the church. The culture is always teaching. We need more than a confession immersed in Jesus. We need a culture immersed in Jesus.

Read Part 1 of this series here. To read Part 3, go here.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Eric Geiger, Josh Patterson, Matt Chandler, Scripture, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

What Your Church Can Learn from the Failed Strategies of the 2012 Presidential Election

by: Trevin Wax

0

Tweet

It’s a tricky thing to engage in political analysis before the dust has fully settled on a recent election. No doubt pollsters, pundits, and politicians from both sides of the aisle will be examining the 2012 election in the coming weeks and months.

Republican strategists will perform a post-mortem on the Romney campaign and the Senate seats that slipped away. Most will wonder about the failure of Republicans to seize the advantage during an ongoing recession and take the reins away from an unpopular president.

Despite the risks of weighing in too early, I thought it would be worth pointing out a few things the evangelical church could learn from the losses of the Republican Party this year. Let me be clear at the outset that I am not equating the two. A political party only has life as long as people find it valuable. The church is guaranteed a future because of Christ’s promise as Master Builder.

Still, there are a number of lessons that evangelicals can learn from failed strategies in the political arena. Here are a few I jotted down while watching the election returns.

1. We cannot afford to ignore changing demographics.

Much of the chatter on election night centered on the increasing racial and ethnic diversity in a number of states traditionally viewed as “safe” for Republicans. The story was similar in Colorado, Florida, and Ohio.

The days when the “male white voter” dominated elections are over, which explains why Romney was able to maintain a substantial lead among white men and still lose the election. When your target is a shrinking number of people and your strategy is to keep them on board by alienating the rising urban ethnic groups (by, let’s say, failing to come up with a sensible immigration plan), it’s no wonder you lose elections.

Surveying the crowd at Romney’s headquarters, I saw a sea of white. Obama’s gathering was a microcosm of the diverse country we live in.

How does this translate to the church? Simple. If you are seeking to be a missionary presence in your community, you can’t ignore demographics.

For example, if your church is an upper-class, predominantly white congregation in a city that is no longer upper-class or predominantly white, then you’ve got a problem. And unfortunately, this problem exists all over the country.

When the community changes colors, churches tend to go into auto-pilot mode with the silent expectation that outsiders should conform to the church’s culture. In the end, we don’t model the coming kingdom or the current community. We develop a “fortress mentality” where a way of life is maintained instead of a “missional mentality” where missionary strategies are employed, strategies that actively seek to reflect the diversity in the community by reaching the lost outside their doors.

2. We can’t ignore facts that make us uncomfortable.

It was interesting to watch how many conservative pundits and politicians were convinced up to the end that Romney would win by a landslide. The talking heads on television were divided down partisan lines, with Republicans predicting Romney would either squeak by or win big and Democrats assuring everyone that Obama would survive. The polls were analyzed, reinterpreted, and refashioned in order to give hope to both campaigns.

Churches can sometimes make the same mistake. We see incremental growth here and there, so we choose to look at the results that encourage us. We avoid the truth that may confront us and make us uncomfortable. To maintain a positive vibe in the congregation, we celebrate small victories and overestimate their importance while at the same time ignoring reality when it presses us to reevaluate our methods or ideas.

A good leader will paint a picture of reality, however disconcerting it may be. It’s only when we see where we truly are that we get motivated with a sense of urgency to complete the tasks God has given us.

3. Political campaigns remind us of the kingdom whose foundation cannot be shaken.

Wins and losses in the political realm each have their lessons. When your preferred candidate wins, it’s easy to pin great hopes on their campaign, to overlook flaws and excuse wrong behavior. When your preferred candidate loses, it’s tempting to wonder if political involvement really matters.

The Christian gets the opportunity every election season to keep things in perspective. Through wins, we temper our expectations regarding the change that any one man can affect, no matter how promising. Through losses, we continue to maintain a faithful presence in obedience to the King who is not up for reelection.

So why get involved in politics anyway? Because elections matter. Ideas have consequences. We are called to live justly and humbly for the glory of God and the good of our neighbors.

But the changing tides of political and public opinion remind us of the steadfast, unmovable kingdom we belong to. We engage, not because it’s popular or because we absolutely must win, but because we are God’s kingdom people, living on earth as citizens of heaven.

Tags: Kingdom Concept, Trevin Wax, Vision Frame

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >

How Your Location Impacts Your Biblical Interpretation

by: Trevin Wax

1

Tweet

You may be surprised to discover just how much your culture determines what you see in the Scriptures.

During my years in Romania, I found myself challenged by the insights Romanian pastors drew from the text. Preachers seemed to spend time on things that I tended to pass over. Even now, when Corina and I discuss a passage of Scripture, we often latch on to different words and phrases. We’re both inclined to think the other has missed the point and is majoring on the minors.

Cultural background and social location play an important role in the way we read a text.

Did You Notice the Famine?

A great example of this phenomenon is found in Mark Allan Powell’s helpful little book What Do They Hear?: Bridging the Gap Between Pulpit and Pew. Powell recounts an experiment with 12 American seminary students assigned to read the parable of the prodigal son and then recount it from memory. Interestingly enough, not one of them mentioned the famine in Luke 15:14: 

After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.

Powell himself had considered Jesus’ reference to the famine as an insignificant detail, but he was surprised to see all of his students forget it.

Next, Powell organized a study with 100 American students of different genders, races, ages, economic statuses, and religions. Out of 100 students, only 6 mentioned the famine in their retelling of Jesus’ parable.

Perplexed, he went to St. Petersburg, Russia, and did the same experiment with 50 Russians. He was shocked when 42 of them remembered the famine. Only 6 out of 100 Americans, but 42 out of 50 Russians.

Why the disparity? Powell believes there may be a psychological explanation that goes back to 1941, when the German army laid siege to St. Petersburg and caused a 900-day famine in which 670,000 Russians died of starvation and exposure. Even after so many years, the horror of the famine lingers in the consciousness of Russian citizens.

What’s the Prodigal’s Problem?

Even more interesting is the fact that many Russian readers made no reference to the prodigal son squandering his property! People from these two cultures tend to hear the emphases of the parable differently.

The American hears the parable like this:

Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.

The Russian hears the parable like this:

Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. After he had spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he had nothing.

In other words, Americans see the famine as an insignificant detail that intensifies the prodigal’s big problem – wastefulness. Russians, on the other hand, see the prodigal’s wasteful spending as an insignificant detail that intensifies the real tragedy – the famine.

Social location and cultural background also impact the way we see what the boy did wrong. Americans consider the prodigal’s great sin to be his extravagant, wasteful lifestyle. But in Powell’s study, the Russians didn’t see wastefulness as the biggest problem:

“His mistake was leaving his father’s house in the first place. His sin was placing a price tag on the value of his family, thinking that money was all he needed from them. Once he had his share of the family fortune, the family itself no longer mattered. In a phrase, his sin was wanting to be self-sufficient.” (18)

In a capitalist society, we see the prodigal’s sin in terms of wastefulness. In a socialist society, the Russians see the prodigal’s sin as self-sufficiency.

Know Your Sources and Know Your People

How does this story apply to our preaching and teaching?

First, we ought to consult a variety of sources and scholars as we study the Scriptures. I know pastors who vary their commentaries based on theological diversity. Very well. But perhaps we should also consult commentaries from people in societies different from our own, to see what our cultural blinders may have screened out.

Second, we should consider how our sermons fall on the ears of others. We must be aware of the social context of our listeners and consider not only what we mean to say but how it might be heard. In order to get our intended meaning across, we must know the people we are preaching to and be able to understand how they hear us.

Powell mentions how Bible readers often remain “oblivious to what they themselves are bringing to the process, unaware that the sorting and organizing of data is influenced by particular factors of their own social location. People who hear our sermons do the same thing – they sort the auditory data, prioritizing, organizing, remembering, forgetting: they create a meaning that seems appropriate to them with little awareness of the extent to which their social location has influenced that process” (19).

Better Bible interpretation and better preaching happens when we keep social location and cultural background in mind: the social location of the Scriptures, of ourselves as interpreters, and of those who hear us preach.

Read more from Trevin here.

Tags: Local Predicament, Scripture, Trevin Wax

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Culture >