Boot Camp Chronicles; The Paradox Of Vision
Anyone who has come anywhere in the vicinity of church-planting ministry has heard this word: vision. Church planters are vision driven. We have to be. We are in the business of being used by God to create something that doesn't yet exist. And before it can exist in a way that can be felt, touched, and experienced by others it must first exist within our minds. A church planter experiences the fully mature church in the stillness of his morning thoughts over coffee. Images of the soon-to-be church drift in and out of his awareness during meals with his wife or while driving to the store, or while half-heartedly watching his favorite sitcom. The church planter is utterly alone in an unexplainable emotional connection with a church that may not become reality for months or even years. Vision is the oxygen breathed by church planters. Yet, strangely enough, that oxygen that keeps the heart and mind and soul of a church planter alive can be the very poison that kills the newborn church once it arrives in the flesh.
Before planting our first church in Illinois the vision was fully formed in my heart and mind. I had read all of the great books like Visioneering by Andy Stanley and Turning Vision Into Reality by George Barna...and countless others. I wrote a vision document. I told everyone about the vision. The articulation of my vision opened all of the necessary doors for us to move our church plant out of my mind and into the lives of many other people. I was repeatedly encouraged by church planter colleagues to have the attitude that my vision is the prevailing vision and if anyone comes along who doesn't fully embrace and support it, to run them off. I had the vision thing down, and yet, I totally missed the point.
From day one I cast the vision to everyone who joined us in our ministry. I would say to people something like, "We are planting a church in this city that will serve as a catalyst for other inter-connected church plants. We are going to have a Community Care Center where we'll offer emergency pantries, computer classes, GED classes, etc. And we're going to create Christ-centered cottage industries to help the many unemployed in our city find jobs and learn to be entreprenuers." This vision was very, very real to me and several people gave their toothy nods of approval.
After two-and-a-half years of living, breathing, and casting this vision we were struggling just to grow the initial congregation beyond 60 people. And of those 60 people, nobody really embraced the full-grown vision I was daily proclaiming. I struggled to understand why. And then, during a 3 day prayer retreat in Kansas City, MO in March, 2005 the light went on. I came away from that retreat with this understanding:
It's not all about convincing people to rally around my vision. It's about creating an environment where every individual can catch a glimpse of and passionately pursue God's vision for their own life.Wow! Here I was trying to give birth to a vision for a large, successful ministry that would touch all of Southern Illinois with the hope of Christ, yet people were walking into our sanctuary every Sunday who had no vision whatsoever for their own lives and "Where there is no vision, the people perish." People were "perishing" right under my nose while my eyes were set 5 years into the future.
The names have been changed to protect the innocent. I wanted people to embrace my vision for a church-planting movement but Lindsey lived day to day wondering if she could ever really overcome her clinical depression and the guilt of her past. I wanted people to help me create a community care center but Robert came in every Sunday wondering if there really was any purpose to his own life. I wanted all of Southern Illinois to know about our ministry for the glory of God, yet Denise wondered if she could make it a week without getting beat up by her dad. And sixty other stories just like this existed all around me while I stared longingly into the horizon.
The paradox of vision is this: God will give us a panoramic view of what he wants to do through us in advancing His Kingdom. It will be far larger than the moment. We will see it fully matured in our hearts and minds. It will energize and drive us. It will keep our hearts alive. Yet the only way we will see it become reality is by setting it aside and giving ourselves fully to the day-by-day work of helping every individual God brings across our path to catch a glimpse of their own personal vision, believe it can become reality, and pursue it with Godly wisdom and strength.
When we as church-planters give ourselves first to the nurturing of vision in the people God entrusts to us, we will then see our own God-ordained vision grow up strong and healthy all around us. Whereas if we keep our hearts and mind focused on the distant horizon while people perish at our feet we will find ourselves walking into that horizon alone.
technorati tag: church planting
Boot Camp Chronicles; Preface
At approximately 7:00 am on Friday, August 19th, 2005 I kissed Lynn goodbye, got in my truck, and drove 11 hours to Augusta, GA to begin a new life; in which Lynn would join me 60 days later after preparing the house to sell and preparing the children's ministry she was leading for transition. The previous Sunday I preached my final message at the church we planted three years earlier and afterward many of us went to my parents farm where I baptized a husband and wife and we all shared a final picnic together.
As I began down the highway on that Friday morning I was an emtional wreck. I was moving us to Augusta so I could financially support us with a job in a field to which I never thought I would return. I knew in my heart that God had called me to the church planting ministry, but as Illinois disappeared in my rearview mirror I had serious doubts that I would ever again plant another church. I was emotionally and spiritually spent and with every mile-marker I passed I tried to conjur up a vision for another church plant. Six-hundred mile-markers later I had experienced six-hundred failed attempts to reignite that passion, that dream.
The following months took me through an emotional and spiritual battle to understand some of the difficult things we had experienced in our church-planting journey. There was a lot of good that happened. Several people were born into the Kingdom during those years, several new friendships were formed, and several people who were previously doing life alone found a spiritual community. But there was also so much that happened that ripped apart my passion for ministry.
I'll refrain from speaking in detail about those painful moments out of respect for our friends from the church who read this blog. But there were so many "whys" during those years that I've struggled to understand these past months. There were many mistakes I made as a pastor that I had to learn from. There were many people I needed to forgive in order to free myself from the grip of bitterness. I am still struggling to forgive some.
Recently I have once again begun to feel the passion and dream the dreams that I feared were lost forever. Today there is coming alive in me a beautiful picture of what God desires to do through us here in Augusta. A picture of our ministry here is emerging with a clarity that even surpasses the clarity of our dream five years ago. And there is also awakening in me a better understanding of all that we went through in Illinois.
Someone once said that church planters believe that God is going to use us to get the church plant done, when in fact, God uses the church plant to get us done (or something like that). I've come to understand that our 3 years in Illinois was my "Basic Training."
A few minutes before I came up to the reading room to write this I looked up
"Basic Training" on Wikipedia. This statement about the purpose of basic training (also called "boot camp") captured me:
Some systems of training seek to totally break down the individual and remold that person to the desired behaviour.If you've ever been through basic training in the military (which I haven't) you remember how intentional your drill seargent was in creating punishing circumstances for you to endure. Everyone comes into the military with their own opinions, ideas, attitudes and behaviors and the purpose of boot camp is to totally tear that person down and then rebuild them into a person that will function as part of a unit (body) and have far greater potential for victory on the battlefield.
Planting our first church was my boot camp. I shared with a new pastor friend of mine the other day that when I began the first days of our ministry I knew everything there was to know about church planting. I read all the books. I learned all the strategies. I daily talked with a nationwide network of church planters. I had been mentored in a year-long full-time internship. There was nothing more for me to learn. But then 2 1/2 years in I realized, "I don't know the first thing about planting a church!" Oh, like I said earlier, a lot of good happened...but only by the grace of God. I was being torn apart in the process; to the point of a complete emotional collapse in March, 2005. And today, I understand that it was God who was tearing me apart for the purpose of remolding me into a man who in the next chapter of ministry would have far greater potential for victory on the battlefield.
I believe that the clarity with which Lynn and I are seeing the vision for our next church plant is the direct result of God's process of tearing me down and rebuilding me during our years in Illinois. In the coming days I'll continue this series of posts that I'm calling "Boot Camp Chronicles" and therin I will share some of the painful lessons I learned during our 3 year season of basic training.
technorati tag: church planting
Divergent Streams
Any reader of my blogs is familiar with the spiritual & ecclesiastical reformation that I've been going through for the past year or so. Throughout this reformation I have found myself strongly drawn into the
"Emergent Conversation." From some who know me I've received criticism for seemingly moving away from the "absolute truth" of scripture and for becoming more "postmodern" in my thinking. As I've spent time in this "conversation" over the past months I have an understanding of how someone could fear this theological drift. But I also see more clearly how someone can miss some important points of the conversation. To fully understand what's beginning to happen in this new movement of ministry across America you have to pay attention to what I see as two divergent streams: The Emerging Church & The Emergent Conversation. What began as one stream a few years ago has diverged into two separate channels. I see much beauty and potential in one stream. I see some danger in the other. And unless we have a clear understanding of what is happening in both channels we run the risk of missing the good in one stream through our fear of what is found in the other.
The "emerging church" is made of up churches like
Mars Hill in Seattle and
Vintage Faith Church in California...and countless other church planting movements. These churches place a strong emphasis on intertwining the ancient truths and practices of our faith into a spiritual life that is holisitic and de-compartmentalized. In other words, there is a deep devotion to Biblical truth. There is a deep respect for our rich heritage; seeing our current place and time as but one thread in a vast tapestry that spans two-thousand years of time and culture. And there is a deep commitment to being more holistic in our approach to spirituality; recognizing that a relationship with Christ is an immersion of our whole life into His way in which no part of our existence remains untouched. In this movement we see the emergence of house churches. We also see a renewal of the practice of communal living. In the "emerging church" movement the idea of Sunday-only Christianity is a strange, offensive anomoly.
And then there is the "Emergent Conversation." I'll refrain from mentioning names of people or names of churches here. I will admit that I find much resonance with what is being said in this conversation, particulary in regards to a greater openness toward people of other religions and lifestyles...for the purpose of loving them into the Kingdom. I believe that what I see in the Emergent Conversation is an openness that is quite similar to that which was demonstrated by Jesus; the friend of sinners. For example, I see churches be-friending gays and lesbians and welcoming them into their gatherings where they can experience the life-changing power of Christ. This is in contrast to more fundamental churches like
Westboro Baptist Church that marches in front of gay bars and military funerals holding signs that say "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God For Dead Soldiers."
I see a genuine desire in the Emergent Conversation to open the doors of dialogue between us and those of other religions in which we look for grains of truth in their worldview and then use those grains of truth to point them to Christ - much the same way Paul did in Athens.
But in this stream I also see a tendency that could lead to great theological error. There is a strong tendency toward
deconstructionism through which everything that we have embraced as orthodox Christian doctrine through the millenia is broken down and questioned. As a by-product of this some in mainstream Christian denominations are beginning to question things like the deity of Jesus, the exclusivity of salvation through Christ alone (maybe there is salvific value found in other belief systems), etc. This to me is un-settling.
I do believe there is value in examining our beliefs. I make it a practice to dialoge with 4 or 5 atheists and agnostics every day for the sake of sharing the gospel, but also for the purpose of forcing myself to examine why I believe what I believe. Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." I believe we could also say, "The unexamined faith is not worth sharing." But as I see some in the Emergent Conversation asking questions but never settling on answers, I become fearful that there is indeed an emerging acceptance of the postmodern denial of absolute truth.
I will continue to watch and listen with interest to the "Emergent Conversation," but I am fully caught up in the stream of emerging churches that I spoke about first. Christianity is growing everywhere in the world, except in America. In America Islam is the fastest growing religion. I believe that this new stream of emerging churches that carries people into more authentic and holistic spiritual devotion is the stream that will bring genuine revival to our soil.
technorati tag: emerging church
And Then You Find One
Saturday night Lynn and I were trying to figure out where we would go to church. We were pretty much out of ideas. We thought we'd just go back to one of the many that we had previously visited.
Then, right around bedtime I remembered a new church plant I read about online the very weekend that I moved to Augusta back in August. I had just found their new location a couple of days earlier (they had moved since August and I lost track of them). So, we got up, drove across the river, made the customary Sunday morning stop at Starbucks, and made our way to
Quest Church.
Now, if you've read any of my blogs over the months you know that I have a tendency to find a lot of things wrong with Western Churchianity. But on Sunday morning Lynn and I found a whole lot of things RIGHT during our visit to Quest. From the moment we walked in we knew that we were among people of authenticity who were truly on a "quest" to know Christ in more intimate ways and to carry Christ out of the building and into the city.
From the moment we arrived to the moment we left we were blessed to find people who were genuinely happy to see us, people who seriously knew how to show hospitality, people who were more interested in experiencing a connection with God than they were with service programming.
The music was great...not happy clappy, not somber & sorrowful, but calm and worshipful. The message was Biblical, the eucharist was celebrated, and the interactive time of people praying for one another was beautiful.
I had lunch with this pastor Wednesday and feel like I've finally found a kindred spirit in this city who more than anything else wants to see lost people find their way to Christ. I'm looking forward to a new friendship with John and the people of Quest.
Movements & Monuments
It all started for me in the summer of 1997. I was working for a newspaper in downtown Jackson, TN when the prominent downtown church packed up and moved out of the downtown area to relocate outside of the city, far away from people and places that most needed the Kingdom of God living and breathing in their neighborhood. I'll never forget the procession that they had planned for their final day in the old building. After services on that Sunday everyone piled into their cars to form a parade toward their new building. Traffic came to a halt for about 7 miles as a parade of about 1000 Lexus' & BMW's & SUV's made their pilgrimage.
Very soon after this I felt God defining my ministerial calling to that of a church planter who would intentionally bring the Kingdom into the forgotten places and to the hearts and minds of the forgotten people. I remember driving around downtown Jackson looking for empty store fronts that I could rent and open up to the hookers and dealers and gang-bangers and homeless as a place where they could experience the love and restoration that is found in Christ and in community with those who know him.
This began my church-planting ministry which didn’t come to fruition in Jackson, but did very soon after emerge in Columbus, GA and later in Carbondale, IL. As I’ve spent the past 10 months or so in Augusta, GA listening for God’s direction for the next chapter of our ministry, I’ve begun to notice a re-kindling of that frustration I felt in Jackson, TN as I live among a quarter-million or so people. That frustration is once again a shaping force in the church we are about to begin forming here. A church that will be for the unchurched. A church in which the churched see themselves as missionaries to the city rather than privileged card-carrying members of the club.
I just don’t get it sometimes…often times. All around me, almost everywhere I look I see churches filled with Christians who have drawn away from the world around them, tucked themselves away in an insulated, out-of-sight cocoon where they don’t have to actually interact with anyone who is not a Christian, to gorge themselves (they call it “being fed”) on teaching, polish their monuments, perfect their personal preferential styles, and never give a second thought to the hopelessness, fear, death, and destruction that is going on right outside their closed door.
Christ has called us to be the makers of movements, yet we occupy ourselves with the making of monuments. A monument can be a building, a pulpit, an organ, a pew, a musical style, a baptismal font (remind me to tell you my absurd baptismal font story sometime), or a multi-million dollar "prayer tower" like one that currently defiles the skyline in Columbus, GA, or anything else that we erect and revere (all for the Glory of God of course!) I was recently reading through the Book of Discipline for my particular denomination and came across all of the liturgies that are written for the purpose of “dedicating” buildings and instruments and furniture and thought to myself, “How silly.” Of course we need to remember that everything placed in our hands by God is meant to be used for His purposes. But when all of this ceremony is carried out by a church that has isolated itself from the people who need Christ most…the whole thing smells of hypocrisy. It’s like saying to God, “We dedicate all of our furniture and instruments to you…but we have no intention of using them for the purpose that matters most to you; seeking and saving those who are lost.”
I’m reminded of the time Peter, James, & John stood with Jesus on the mountain and experienced with him a visitation of Moses & Elijah and a voice booming from Heaven. Peter’s first thought was, “Lord, we have to build a monument to memorialize this holy moment (my paraphrase)!” Jesus, on the other hand, had other plans…to get off the mountain, get back to the "sinners;" the hookers & thieves, and continue getting the movement underway.
A movement begins small; with one person, then three, then twelve, then one hundred twenty, then a few thousand and it continues “moving,” refusing to turn inward, refusing to be distracted by the building of monuments, until everyone who can be touched by the movement is reached. The church Jesus inaugurated is a movement than began with him and twelve others, swept the world, and continues today. It is a movement intended to put followers of Christ face-to-face with hurting people who are far from God so that we can be agents of reconciliation, love, and restoration from God to those people.
I’m amazed at how many Christians do not have one single friend who is not a Christian. I’m amazed at how many churches go for weeks, months, even years without a single non-Christian present in their gatherings - yet exuberantly celebrate and proclaim success in the mission when a Christian transfers in from another church. I’m amazed at how many churches intentionally design everything they do around their own personal preferences rather than designing everything they do around whatever will be most effective in seeking out non-Christians and creating environments where they can experience the life-changing power of Christ. A guy named Paul once said, “I have become all things to all people so that by any means I may reach some.” He got it! His preferences, his agendas, his comfort were all rubbish if they got in the way of introducing one lost person to Christ.
If we stop coming face-to-face in relationships with people who are far from God, the movement stops. God’s anointing lifts and moves elsewhere because we are no longer engaged in what He is engaged in. Churches shrink and die. And we all sit around wondering what went wrong. Did we need a better band? Did we need small groups perhaps? Was the teaching not good enough? Did we need more money? No, it’s simple. What went wrong is that we left the movement, took the off-ramp, found a quiet shady spot, spread out our blanket where nobody would bother us, and spent our time feeding ourselves.