So, almost a month later, I realize my need to finally reflect on the second two days of the Evangelism and Church Growth conference.
So, there were two key areas I want to reflect on...
1 - Knowing your Community
This was a series of two workshops I took from Eugene Blackwell, pastor of House of Manna in Pittsburgh. He shared several stories about how he gained a heart for his neighborhood, and how he felt called to plant a new church in response to his established congregation who did not at that time have a heart to do the same kind of outreach and community transformation that Blackwell had in mind.
Blackwell emphasized that you start by "preaching the Gospel". This took a couple of days for me to unpack and understand. In my lingo, what he identified is...
First, build relationships. Jesus did not just stand on a street corner or start a worship service. He talked with people and figured out what they felt their needs were. He got to know folks well enough to hear them ask for mercy in particular areas of their lives. You can't know how to incarnate the Gospel to someone if you don't know that person.
For Blackwell this meant visiting, walking the streets, slowly getting up the nerve to talk to some of the drug users and lower level dealers. It meant learning how the real economics of that neighborhood worked, why people chose crime (i.e. was it to support their kids?). He figured out what peoples' fears were and dreams. He figured out the patterns of pain that had occurred in that community.
Second, make the Gospel real. A la Book of James, you can't say "peace be with you" and leave a person hungry or naked. If a man needs a job, you are called to help find him a job so that when you talk about a Jesus that cares, he believes you. This requires building relationships more broadly, not just in your community, but elsewhere, so you can connect resources with needs. LOTS of work
Third, know your entry points. This is largely cultural. Since Blackwell had grown up in a similar style community in Chicago, he knew that most folks had some grandma somewhere that had gone to church, so he could start out with questions like, "Who is God to you?" If you are reaching out to a largely atheistic culture, those starting point questions might be different... but notice this is the third, not first step.
Fourth, be willing to invest in people long term. Blackwell didn't understand building community as just getting butts in seats to build a church, he understood it as creating real life-long disciples. So, not just getting folks to enter into faith, but to become folks that are daily journeying in faith.
I could see a huge amount of what Blackwell was preaching as connecting directly to what I have heard in community organizing with Allied Communities of Tarrant and IAF. Spend time in one on one relational meetings, understand that folks already know what they need, and we just need to connect to one another to build enough power to really transform communities.
Above all, it highlighted to me that as a church, even with a great program like Academia, we spend a lot of time solving peoples' problems (a lousy version of step 2) and never doing 1, 3, or 4.
2 - Churches building churches
We talked about really important stuff: money, training, process of a church launch, and coaching.
Money
Some of the key reasons that church plants fail according to Tim Morey is overfunding or underfunding. In my synopsis, in the past the PCUSA has been a specialist in overfunding, but we are quickly moving to the opposite extreme. Historically, we largely fund churches for 3 years, and then partly fund them for 3 more years (slight exaggeration, but close). Morey's denominational model funds a plant for 3 years, 1st year with full salary, second two with half salary. He argued that there is something to be gained by a planter having to do fundraising, because they have to be able to share their passion with folk and teach tithing early on.
The challenge with underfunding is you are probably asking a planter to overextend themselves by having to hold down a full-time job and do a huge amount of evangelism.
The biggest thing he said, though, that I heard was the need for the mother church to really be invested in its daughter church... that, in fact, is why Morey recommends those terms... because mothers are invested in wanting their children to become self-sufficient adults (or at least they should). But if that investment is real, then the mother church must have their daughter as a top priority... being willing to share members or donate members without strings attached, increasing tithing and sacrificing financially, and spiritually supporting the endeavor through dedicated prayer and provision of good training and coaching. Just like a parent gains so much through raising kids, a parent/mother church has only gain through this process... but those who are living in fear of there not being enough will be too focused on themselves and not willing to be good parents to a daughter church.
Training
This is taught in several steps...
1 - Being able to articulate and identify what the Gospel is for you and for your community
2 - Prayer: learning how to intercede and develop your own rule for life. If the pastor/planter is not spiritually healthy the church plant is going no where. This is where each planter really takes time to reflect on what they need to be doing daily/weekly/monthly to support their own spiritual growth and discernment as well as spiritually support the new church. HUGE.
I could see that second step being absolutely transformative for a session or new church plant team... I need it.
3 - Context: understand your community and its needs (see earlier reflection on my other workshops).
4 - Evangelism - both missional and attractional models
Missional: focus on meeting people where they are, going out, building the relationships, doing the gospel.
Attractional: being a known enough community that folks seek you out (this is secondary after you already gather a certain group... you have to have something you can invite folks to).
5 - Vision and Values - I saw this as much of the early discernment in the PCUSA Starting New Churches 3.0 book
Process of a Church Launch
I won't go into the details here, but this gave me a huge sense of peace. On some level it was way too detailed, as in "do this for so many months, then do this", but on another level it was very helpful and realistic.
Some basic principles:
Focus on gathering and building a community, not on starting a worship service
Worship service take a lot of planning time and energy, start them slowly or you will sap the energy from your leadership
Make sure to get your foundation right first: identity, values, vision, goals
Evaluate and reevaluate your steps as you go
Do a soft launch before an official Grand Opening
There is something magical about 75, below that, you won't have critical mass for a solid public gathering.
Overall, I left the event feeling like I have the tools I need to enter into faithful discernment with Gethsemane. Now, to just get over my own laziness and make the discernment a priority.
Thank you ECG2012. I hope that this time next year we will have several other leaders from our ministries attending, and that maybe we will have stories to tell as well as stories to hear.
Rev. Lindsay
No comments:
Post a Comment