What Happened to a Denominational Movement?

A few days ago I was thumbing through a Free Methodist History book and read its little section on church planting. The book was written in the mid 1980's and the author was celebrating a church planting movement within the denomination. Between 1979-1983 there were 100 new Free Methodist churches planted in the US!

Read these words of excitement and energy from author Donald Demary:

"Here and there across the North American continent, fresh church planting projects arise and we now begin to see faster growth in the denomination. Some believe we can have a total of 2,000 Free Methodist churches by the year 2000. Actually, that would mean an increase of only one and a half churches a year for each conference."

2,000 FM churches by the year 2000. What a great vision! What a contagious attitude of anticipation for the spread of a movement!

Yet, in June of 2009 it was reported that there are 967 FM churches in the US, which is tragically well short of the anticipated 2000.

Which begs the question, "what happened?" What happened to the movement? What happened to the passion and commitment to starting new churches? What happened to the bold, apostolic leadership? What happened to the missional impulse that swept across the denomination? Perhaps a bigger question is, why are denominations lagging behind in the planting of new churches?

I cannot help but read Demary's words, consider the reality and be troubled. Yet, I am also challenged by them. My hope and prayer is that this blip-on-the-radar-screen denomination of which I am part will once again be committed to starting new works to reach the unchurched across the land, and that 2,000 or 4,000 or even 10,000 new churches might be a reality and not just a paragraph of wishful thinking in a history book.

I know at least one leader who is committed to such a movement.

Tribute to Marko

Usually I try to post something that is church-planting related but I'm going to shift gears a little this week. As many of you know, before I began this church planting adventure I was in the youth ministry world. While I served as a youth pastor I was introduced to an organization called Youth Specialties, which served to resource and equip youth workers. One of the ways in which YS does this is through their annual National Youth Workers Convention. Imagine 6,000 youth pastors gathering together for 4 days. Insane, I know! YS was founded by Mike Yaconelli and shortly after his death several years ago the company was bought by Zondervan Publishing.

Since Yaconelli's passing YS has been led by Mark Oestricher (or "Marko" as he is more fondly referred). Yesterday I learned that Marko had just been laid off as the president of YS, which came as shock to myself and much of the youth ministry community.

I share all of this because YS, and specifically Marko, has greatly influenced me and my practice of ministry. What I have always appreciated about Marko is his honesty, transparency, his love for youth workers, and his love for Jesus. While I don't know Marko personally I feel as if I do. Each year as I would attend these conventions I would be encouraged, loved, and patted on the butt with an "attaboy" by Marko (not literally but more of a figurative butt-patting). In short, I have looked to Marko as one of the important voices in youth ministry, one who challenged the status-quo, loved on thousands of youth workers, and never forgot what youth ministry was all about, hanging out with young people and sharing the presence of Christ with then.

I don't know what led to this. My gut reaction is to be upset with Zondervan for making such a poor decision, but I just don't know the facts. What I do know is that Marko has faithfully served Jesus as a leader in the youth ministry community, has been a tremendous influence in my life and countless others as well. I look forward to seeing where he ends up and Zondervan's loss will certainly be someone else's gain.

Thanks a ton Marko for loving on us youth workers, encouraging us, and helping us find the strength to keep going when church boards, parents, sr. pastors, and our own expectations were dragging us down. I consider it a blessing to be in youth ministry during a time when you are a leading voice. Grace and Peace as you continue to run after God's calling upon you.

the elements of a movement

I'm not interested in being part of a church.

I'm much more interested in being part of a movement. At its inception Christianity was a movement, started by its founder and simply reproduced by his followers who were empowered by the Holy Spirit. Somewhere along the way we began to set up shop somewhere, settle in, and devote all of our time and resources to our own little local church.

As I think about church planting, I don't want to plant a church. I want to plant churches that plant churches that plant churches. In short, I want to be part of a movement of churches that announce the Good News of Jesus to people all over the place. Which begs a fairly significant question: How does a movement get started anyways?

In some research for grad school I recently came across some stuff on Christian youth movements, and while this is in the context of youth ministry I think it applies to any movement throughout history. I am borrowing here from Mark Senter, a Christian Education professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He maintains that there are five elements to a movement:

1. a visionary

2. a simple system

3. media coverage (a way of spreading the vision to the masses)

4. a spokesperson (a person who travels to spread the vision)

5. a sense of God's special working

Again, Senter is writing in the context of youth movements but I tend to think these elements would be present in a church planting movement as well. Yet, I would also contend that the most critical (and often overlooked) element is the sense of God's special working (Senter's words) or the power of the Holy Spirit (mine). In other words, I don't think that we can manufacture movements. There is a supernatural transcendent element that supercedes all other elements that must be at work.

I think that too often we get busy on the vision, simple system, media coverage, and spokespeople elements and aren't patient enough to allow ourselves to wait for a sense of God's special working. I cannot help but think of Jesus' request that his disciples wait in the upper room for the Spirit before they do anything.

Going back to my question, "how does a movement get started?" What I do know is I'm not the one who starts the movement. I am the one called to wait for the Spirit/Wind/Breath to inspire something fresh, radical, and beautiful within me, and give myself to that, and only then will I find myself swept up in a movement.

Would love to hear some thoughts on this.

Vision

Whenever I'm around other church leaders one of the buzzwords that's thrown around is the word "vision." Churches craft vision statements, people write books about vision, and pastors cast vision for their church. As I embark upon the journey of planting churches I am even asked what my vision is for a church.

I have a scary admission to make...I'm not sure I have a vision.

What I mean is that as of yet I don't have a clever, nice, neat, and tidy vision statement to put on church letterhead and hang up on a wall somewhere. I'm simply trying to live into the vision that God has for the world and what specifically my small role will be. My fear is that if I'm not careful my vision could easily become about me and my personal preference for church.

When I look at the great visionary leaders throughout biblical/church history (Nehemiah, Paul, Martin Luther, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr) I can't help but notice that these were human beings that were in tune with God's vision for the world and as a result they discovered their specific role in bringing about what could be and should be.

I guess the real question is not what is my vision, but what is God's vision and am I in tune with it? And only when I am tune with God's grand vision of redeeming and rescuing the world from sin and death, will I begin to grasp how to contextualize it in the community of faith in which I am called to form and lead.

And then I will craft it into a clever sentence and hang it on a wall.

What are your thoughts on vision as it pertains to church planting?

Do you want to get well?

In our church right now we are in the middle of a series on the family. It also seems as if every week I'm confronted by another family experiencing difficulty, another marriage on the rocks, or another individual struggling with some addiction. Some have argued that perhaps our churches have gone too far on the end of felt-needs preaching, and while some of this concern is probably legitimate, if there were ever a "felt-need" or topic that a church must address today it is the family. While divorce, infidelity, and addiction rates are just as high within the church as they are outside of it, I think that it is the church's responsibility to speak into families with a prophetic voice.

All of this has led me to a question that Jesus asks a paralyzed man in John 5. This man has been lying by a pool for thirty-eight years. He isn't simply just lounging around a hotel pool sipping margaritas. This pool was different. Disabled people came to this pool day after day because it was believed that if one was the first to enter this pool after its waters were stirred then he would be healed of whatever disease he had. So every day for thirty-eight years this man could only lie there and watch others step into this pool in hopes of healing, while he was physically unable to move and without hope.

And then Jesus comes by and asks one question, "Do you want to get well?"

The more time I spend in ministry the more I find that the answer to this question is quite complicated for us. Its not that we don't want to get well. Who doesn't want restoration in their marriage, freedom from addiction, reconciliation with a loved one? The issue isn't that we don't want to get well, the issue is that one: we don't want to admit that we're sick and two: getting well is often painful and requires hard work.

Jesus wants to make us well. He wants to make me well individually, forgiving me of my sin and empowering me to live a holy life, and he wants to make us well communally, in our marriages, relationships, and families. The sad thing is that lying at the pool becomes all too familiar for us and we forget that we were created for something better.

I guess this is bigger than just marriage and family, but I am convinced that Jesus wants our individual lives and our families to express the vibrant abundant life he promised, but we have to truly want to be well in order for this happen. So if you've been lying at the pool for a while and you truly want to get well, Jesus invites you to get up and step into a new way of being, a new way of living; one that might be unfamiliar and painful at first, but it will be far more beautiful and compelling in the long run.

Sorry to get preachy, but this stuff has been swirling in my brain this week.