Cultivating a Life for God

I finally read a book that has been sitting on my shelf for years and it really challenged me.  The book is titled Cultivating a Love for God by Neil Cole.  This book is a great example of not judging a book by its cover.  The cover is a little feminine for my taste but the content is exceptional.  The book is an explanation of what Cole refers to as "Life Transformation Groups" or LTG's.

Here's a summary of what an LTG is: a group of 2-3 people meet together weekly and go through several accountability questions, pray for unbelieving friends, and commit to reading 30 chapters of Scripture a week.  if one member of the group doesn't complete all 30 chapters of the reading, they all go back and do it again until every member completes the reading.  Once a fourth is added to the group they break off and reproduce another group.

It sounds very systematic and methodical but I love the depth of the commitment and the emphasis on multiplication.  In fact, Cole has planted churches simply through launching LTG's.  A question I had before reading the book was whether or not a new believer was asked to read 30 chapters of the Bible and participate in accountability right away.  Cole argues that they absolutely should because by setting the bar high right from the start a hunger for the Bible and evangelism is being developed immediately.  This leads to a greater depth in discipleship than what is being experienced in too many of our churches.

Check out this excerpt from Cultivating a Love for God:

"There is not a single command to plant a church or to multiply small groups.  There is a lot of church planting and multiplying of groups going on in the New Testament, but not because the church was instructed to do so.  The reason that groups and churches multiplied is because the first generation of Christians were obeying a very specific and simply command-to make disciples!  When Christians are obedient to this single command, it results in multiplying groups and churches.  To attempt to multiply groups and churches without multiplying disciples is not only disobedient, but it is downright impossible." p.93

I'd be interested in hearing from some people about their experience with discipleship methods and strategies.  I'm really intrigued by the LTG's and their organic approach.  What are your thoughts?

A New Community

On Monday we moved from Zion, Il to Aurora, IL to begin a one-year church planting internship with Resolution Church.  Our move could not have gone smoother: the moving truck was there in time, everything was packed, no rain, traffic was good, and plenty of help on both ends.  As our move is now completed I find myself thinking back to a conversation with Bekki the evening before we made this internship "official."

Before putting in the call to the powers-that-be I asked Bekki what made her most nervous about this transition.  She said, "I'm not really nervous about raising support and renting out our home.  I nervous to leave our friends."  I, on the other hand was nervous about the support-raising and our home.  A beautiful example of how God gives us spouses who compliment us well.

Yet after completing the move on Monday I shared my wife's sentiments.  I felt kind of...alone.  We had so many friends come out and help us on Monday, several of which even made the trek with us to our new home.  These were all relationships that we had developed over our last five years while serving in that community.  In short, Zion/Waukegan/Wesley Church had become home.  It was the community to which we belonged and contributed.  Aurora doesn't feel like our home and I don't yet feel like a belong.  Now I know we've been here just two days and in time we will feel at home and like we belong, but for now I really find myself a bit nostalgic.

I think this illustrates the power of community and why it is so important that we are intentional about developing community with our neighbors.  When we arrived in Waukegan five years ago we didn't know a soul and over time it became our home, but it took some work.  I am finding that the older I get the more work it takes to develop this kind of meaningful community.  When I left home for college sure there was some anxiety, but I was mostly filled with excitement.  When I left college to begin full-time ministry sure I'd miss the community there, but I was filled with anticipation of the new horizon upon which I would embark.  This time it's more difficult.  We were pretty established and pretty comfortable, and perhaps that is exactly why God called us to strike camp, to leave home and to "tent" in a new place.

 I think this also illustrates the power of church: a community committed to bearing witness to the resurrection of Jesus.  So here we are in a new place where we don't know a soul, searching for a new home, striving to belong to a new communtiy.  We have our work cut out for us!

starting a house church

One thing that I would like to do with this blog is regularly share about what I am reading and hopefully spark some conversation.

I recently finished a book titled, Starting a House Church by Larry Kreider and Floyd McClung. I've been interested in the house church movement for some time now and I actually stumbled across this book at a bookstore a few weeks ago.  The authors are obviously huge proponents of house churches and claim that this expression of church is on the rise in the US, especially among those in their 20's and 30's.

Kreider and McClung cite a Barna study  indicating that roughly 20 million US adults attend a house church on a typical week, which translates to 9% of American adults.  So why would 20 million people choose house church over our more conventional community and mega-churches?  According to the authors the house church approach is more intimate, participatory, cost-effective, and more easily reproducible.

I tend to agree that a more simple and organic approach to church planting makes a lot of sense.  The key in my opinion though is reproduction.  The goal should not be a single house church but rather a network of house churches.  There are many house churches that never grow or reproduce and they tend to just become small inward-focused groups who are simply upset with the church they left.  At their best, house churches are networked with other house churches.

The one question that I want to explore regarding the house church approach is how does a house church planter generate and sustain momentum?  Maybe this is just coming out of my experience in more of the attractional model to doing church and momentum is generated and sustained as the house churches grow and reproduce but I'm just concerned that people become very comfortable with their group and this can easily lead to too much contentment and too little evangelistic zeal.  I guess it comes down to leadership and constantly casting a vision for reaching more non-Christians and reproducing more house churches.

I think its important to be thinking about and studying this approach as many young people outside of the church are more attracted to the house church than to the mega "attractional" church.  I'd love to hear some thoughts on house church, especially from anyone who has experience in one.

a busy week

I'm a little late in posting but this has been a busy week for Bekki and I.  It was our final week as staff pastors at Wesley Church where we have served for just under five years, and we also spent a few days attending Annual Conference at Sky Lodge Camp in Wisconsin.  (For those of you unfamiliar with Annual Conference it is a two-day pastors meeting that we attend for our denomination each year).

At annual conference I presented a workshop titled "The Present Future: Engaging the Hearts of Young Leaders."  The main thrust of my workshop is that we must be intentional about leadership development or the future of the church is in serious trouble.  I spent some time taking a look at the youth ministry landscape today and then shared a vision for leadership development in the Free Methodist Church.  The workshop was well received by those in attendance, but I was also a bit discouraged by a smaller turnout.  It just seems that by and large, our denominations are not making young people a priority and I wonder if there's a connection between this and the decline of denominations being experienced today.

Today I preached my final sermon as youth pastor at Wesley Church.  The title of my sermon was "Will Our Children Have Faith?"  The titled was borrowed from a book with the same title written by John Westerhoff III.  In my message I looked at Deuteronomy 6.4-9 where the Hebrew people are instructed to bind God's commands to their foreheads (also known as phylacteries) and also at Matthew 18.1-6 where Jesus warns his audience that if they cause little ones to stumble it would be better for them to have a millstone tied around their neck.  So the question I put before the church was, are we wearing phylacteries (telling the story of faith to younger generations) or are we wearing millstones (causing our young people to stumble in their faith)?  My challenge to the church in my exit was to make the young people a priority and to see youth ministry not just as the task of the youth pastor, but as the task of the church.

This week is all about packing and getting ready for the big move on June 22.  We found a great house that we can afford thanks to the generosity of some friends!

Housing Update

If you read my previous post and scroll down to see our prayer needs, you know that we have this crazy big goal of having 1,000 prayer partners join us in our church planting adventure. I don't think we're quite at 1,000 yet but God is definitely hearing the prayers of God's people.

Two of the biggest things that needed to happen to make this transition possible was to do something with the home we own in Zion, and to find an affordable place to live in the Plainfield/Naperville/Aurora area. Bekki and I thought and prayed about putting our home up for sale but after prayer, seeking counsel, and meeting with a realtor we decided to rent it out for the year, and maybe the market will be better for us to sell next year. Our realtor was less than hopeful that we could get our full monthly mortgage from a renter, but we figured we'd at least start there and see what happens.

After about three weeks of our house being up for rent our realtor (Betty) called and said, "Erick, you're never going to believe this but we're showing the house tonight to a pastor looking at a place for some missionaries to the Phillipines while they're back in the states for a year."

I was intrigued.

When Betty showed up later that evening and Bekki greeted her and this pastor it turns out it was a pastor of a church in our community, whom Bekki actually knew! She used to work at a little Christian bookstore that also housed the offices of a church plant, of which this was the pastor.

Here's the long and short of what proceeded to happen. The pastor loved the house and was very excited about the possibility of the missionaries taking it. The next day Betty called to tell us that the missionaries are taking it, at the very price we were asking (our monthly mortgage payment)! The missionaries have since been by to see the house, loved it, and were very kind and gracious. At the end of their visit this pastor prayed for the missionaries and Bekki and I. When Bekki shared this with me my eyes were flooded with tears.

I am not one to spiritualize everything (but I think I should be), but I assure you that this family could've gotten a lot more house for what they're paying. I assure you that God could've brought us any renters, but God brought us missionaries who are sponsored by a church plant! I assure you that nine times out of ten, this doesn't happen this quickly and we would lower our price.

After signing the lease today Betty's parting words to me were, "This is a God-thing. I get goosebumps everytime I think about it." My sentiments exactly.

I think God wants us to plant a church!

1,000 True Fans

As I was putting together our fundraising stuff I began thinking that we should have a goal for how many prayer partners we'd like for our church plant.  The number that immediately came to mind was 1,000.  1,000!

At first I thought to myself, "1,000 is a bit high, maybe we should shoot for 500?"  500 would be more easily attainable, it makes more logical sense, and I almost have that many friends on Facebook.  But 500 wasn't the number that came to mind.

1,000 prayer partners it is.  1,000 would be a challenge.  1,000 isn't something we can attain all that easily.  1,000 doesn't make a lot of logical sense.  God would truly have to stir some hearts. But imagine if it worked.  Imagine if we had 1,000 people in prayer for a church planting movement.  What kind of impact could that have on a community, city, marriage, family, workplace, neighborhood, or school?  Imagining and Dreaming is exactly what we're doing and we hope that you will be one of the 1,000 who gets to be a part of joining Jesus in redeeming humanity!

Check out some more thoughts on the world of 1,000 true fans from Seth Godin's latest book,  "Tribes:"

In an article posted on his Technium Web site, Kevin Kelly brilliantly described the world of "1,000 True Fans."  A true fan, he argues, is a member of a tribe who cares deeply about you and your work.  That person will cross the street to buy from you or bring a friend to hear you or invest a little extra to support you.  An individual artist needs only a thousand fans in her tribe.  Its enough.

A true fan brings three friends to a John Mayer concert or to the opening of a Chuck Close exhibit.  A true fan pays extra to own the first edition, or buys the hardcover, instead of just browsing around on the Web site.  Most important, a true fan connects with other true fans and amplifies the noise the artist makes.

Too many organizations care about numbers, not fans.  They care about hits or turnstile clicks or media mentions.  What they're missing is the depth of commitment and interconnection that true fans deliver.  Instead of always being on the hunt for one more set of eyeballs, true leaders have figured out what that the real win is in turning a casual fan into a true one.

Fans, true fans, are hard to find and precious.  Just a few can change everything.  What they demand though is generosity and bravery.

Sounds kind of like the beginning of the Church doesn't it?