Tag: church

Why Are You Planting a Church?

The most important question any church planter can ask is “ Why am I planting a church?” I have had some conversations with some great guys lately who I think are really struggling with that question. All of us struggle with why we are in ministry on Monday morning, but we need to evaluate our motivation on a bigger scale. Let’s look at what I think are some lousy reasons to plant a church and then share a great reason I recently heard. First the lousy reasons:

“I want to reinvent church”

This one comes in a lot of flavors, but it always comes down to the bottom line, I have a better way to do church. More hymns, no hymns, pews, no pews, more art, more coffee, more beer, less structure, less formality. We’re going to be radically sold out. We’re not going to cater to Christians. We’re going to go deep. We’re going to go wide. We’re going to be a church for people who absolutely abhor the awful church that I’m currently drawing my paycheck from.

The church doesn’t need you to reinvent it. God may lead you to do ministry a little differently (though almost all of the “new, fresh, casual, relevant” churches tend to look exactly alike), but that is not a reason to plant a church. The church is not a canvas for you to express your individuality. The church is God’s idea and he’ll let you know when it needs to be reinvented.

“I’m looking for my next ministry job”

The church staff business is a tough gig these days. There have been a ton of layoffs and there are some amazing people who are no longer employed by a church or are looking for a new place to work. But that isn’t a reason to start a new church. The church is not a union shop and we don’t need more so we will all have a job.

“There are no good churches in the community where I want to plant”

I would bet that almost every community in America has at least one good church. If you want a humbling exercise search for churches on a map of your area. (Here’s a link to a search of Orange County, California where I currently live. The churches are the red dots that look like measles.) Not every church is life giving, but I bet at least one is.

So why would you start a church? I was talking recently to a church planter in the Northwest. He said the reason he started a church was because his friends were going to hell and he couldn’t think of a better way to bring them to Jesus. He said that once all of his friends are saved (he’s personally led many of them to Christ in the six years since he started the church) he would probably go do something else. As he told me this story tears welled up in his eyes; he can’t stand the thought of his friends facing eternity without God.

We don’t need any more churches in America, but we are woefully short of life saving stations. If you just want to start another church please go somewhere that needs one. If you can’t stand the thought of people going to hell from your community, and you are convinced that starting a new church is the only way you can reach them, let me know how I can help.

 

Do we REALLY need to plant more churches?

Here is a question that has been bothering me a lot lately; there seems to be a new church plant in every theater and school in many towns, so do we really need more new churches? As I was reading the second chapter of Mark yesterday about Jesus’ calling Levi to be his disciple a couple of things jumped out at me that I think apply to this question. Read the paragraphs below and then I’ll share my thoughts:

As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Levi got up and followed him. Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)

But when the teachers of religious law who were Pharisees saw him eating with tax collectors and other sinners, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat with such scum?”

When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

The first thing that jumped out is that Jesus’ followers included many “disreputable sinners”. Jesus didn’t just hang out with sinners; he hung out with disreputable sinners. And he didn’t just hang out with them; they followed him. Jesus’ church (gathering) was made up for the most part of people we don’t normally associate with elders and deacons.If we want a church that looks like Jesus’ church then we need to focus on gathering scum.I know this isn’t new or revolutionary, but it does seem to fly in the face of the “fly with the eagles” mindset.

So how do we gather scum when we are growing a church? This is the second thing that stood out to me in this passage, Jesus said; “I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.” Jesus focused on those who already knew they needed a Savior.

This points to a couple of mistakes we often make in the church. First we focus on meeting the needs of the already convinced. We create programs and ministries that soften the cocoon of faith so that everyone is as comfortable as possible. Eventually the cocoon can become all that matters and we lose contact with scum like the sinners that followed Jesus. When talking to the already convinced Jesus said things like; “let the dead bury the dead”, “go and sell everything you have” and “take up your cross”. Imagine trying to recruit leaders for those ministries.

A second and less obvious mistake we make is spending a lot of energy trying to convince people that they are sinners. While Jesus never shied away from pointing out sin in the lives of the self-righteous, he didn’t waste time hammering the point until they agreed with him. He focused on those who knew they were headed down a dead end street. Jesus didn’t have to point out to the woman caught in adultery that sleeping around wasn’t God’s will for her life. He didn’t give Zacheus a lecture on Christian business ethics. The Holy Spirit was already at work in these people’s lives and they responded readily to Jesus’ message of forgivness and healing.

According to this passage in Mark the key to growing a church like Jesus’ church is to ignore the self-righteous and to offer forgiveness and healing to the disreputable sinners. The good news is that while there are already plenty of churches who cater to those who think they are righteous the market is wide open for churches who cater to the scum.

Do we need another cocoon for the already convinced? No. Do we need hundreds and hundreds more rescue missions for the lost and dying? Absolutely.