A Year Later

We’ve had a few annual events take place recently that have taken me back a year ago, when we were still very early in the process of planting Liberty Grace Church. These events have caused me to reflect, and they’ve made me grateful.

• A year ago on Maundy Thursday I took my family to Liberty Village for the first time for dinner. One year later we live in Liberty Village and love it.
• A year ago this month my wife went to Pastor’s Wives Conference. At that point, we were the entirety of Liberty Grace Church. A year later, we have a group of people who are walking with us, including some who have moved into the community with us, and others who are planning on doing so.
• A year ago I was attending an annual study group I’m part of, wondering about all that would happen before I returned in May 2013. I’m sitting in the airport boarding lounge right now filled with gratitude for all that’s happened, and excitement about our near future.

A year isn’t a long time. It’s long enough, though, to take a step back and to celebrate what God has done.

One thing has been clear: I have begun the process of planting this church in weakness. Despite this, God has been gracious. I have been reminded so many times this year that God is able, and that I’d better trust in his strength rather than rely on my own. It’s almost as if God has given me extra coursework here, but I’m still learning.

If you’ve been praying for us this far, thank you. Please continue to pray. We have lots of events planned for the community in the coming months, and we are working towards a public launch in September.

Please pray that God would continue to build our team, and that we will have a heart to love the people in the community around us. Pray for our practical needs as well, as I have quite a bit of work to do in fundraising before the Fall.

God has been so good. I’m glad he’s taken us on this journey.

Urban Church Planting: An Interview with Mark Reynolds

Mark Reynolds is Vice President of Redeemer City to City, an organization that aims to help leaders build gospel movements in cities. I love what City to City is doing, and I've found Mark to be a wealth of wisdom on why urban church planting is important, and how we can plant effectively in the key urban centers of the world.

I'm grateful that Mark took the time to answer some of my questions.

Your role allows you to see what God is doing in cities all around the world. What excites you?

Primarily in the West I'm seeing a convergence of ministry innovation and learning in the context of urban church planting. You have this overlap of cities as an idea, and then church planting. These are potent tools for research and development for the church. This creates a laboratory of learning and ministry innovation. Over time this will be extremely helpful to the city churches and others that are outside of the cities as well.

I’m also seeing a growing awareness of the need and opportunity in cities for church planters. There’s a growing awareness, but we’re still lagging behind in the competencies and proficiencies to do it well.

The story is still unfolding, but there are three things that I am excited about:

• First, the church in the West is thinking through its relationship with the culture. It’s bringing more explicitly its understanding of its role in the culture as a particular church or collection of churches instead of just letting the culture determine that or just assuming that there's one model. They’re not just acquiescing to the culture or taking a militant posture towards the culture but asking, “How are we as a church to relate to culture in this particular time in history, with our gifts and our contributions?” Before it was either assumed for us, or it was just nakedly brought in without us thinking it through. I’m excited that churches are thinking this through.
• Second, there’s a simultaneous awareness of the gospel being both proclaimed and embodied in deed. The church is committed to preaching the gospel, calling people to the new birth. We’re also realizing there are great needs in the city. Churches need, for the love of neighbor and for Christ’s sake, to serve those that have need.
• The third thing I am excited about is still evolving. The church is asking what evangelism and apologetics looks like in this particular time in these urban centers. How does the church do persuasion? How do we address the base line narratives that urban dwellers are asking or living in and not just assuming that we know? The church is entering into those stories, asking what people are thinking, and considering how they present the gospel to those people God has called them to reach.

We are still learning from them because evangelism can be a challenge in the cities. I think that the church that isn't in the city should be attracted to learning from these urban churches, because that's where  a lot of innovation is taking place. Cities as an idea are already the leading edge of forming culture. They are creating the new norms. How is the church responding to the new norms? It's very important. We want to be learning from them as well as helping them flourish.

What concerns you?

Well maybe lets start with the macro level.

Many urbanologists are telling us that five million people each month are moving into cities. This is taking place through domestic and international migration. It's a staggering number of people.  Over two months that's ten million people - a significant city every two months being added to the globe as it were. God is moving the human community into cities. Even to keep pace with that urban growth trend we would need to create 500 new congregations every month. Thats only assuming one church for every 10,000.  Missiologists tell us that we need at least one vibrant church for every 1,000 people, so just to keep pace at a very unreached level we would need to be planting 500 churches a month in the cities. Really, to reach those cities, we need to do 10 times that.

The need is overwhelming, and the invitation to the global church to awaken to this need should be there. It should keep us seeking the Lord of the harvest to raise up laborers to reach people in cities. 

Within the West, I think that we are not keeping up with the contextualization requirements.  By that I mean, it’s too easy to import a model of ministry that has shaped us. We are all creatures of habit. We are all shaped by different things, but the imposition of a church model that we love or we haven't properly assessed just doesn’t make sense. We need to be weened off a certain imperialism, just assuming that we know what cities need without listening and learning.

Then maybe the other thing that I am concerned about is that it’s a challenging assignment. What is attracting churches and leaders to these cities? Is it with a redemptive heart? Or is it that it’s a nice place to live and raise a family? There can be a lot of idolatry and hubris built around that as we kind of think about going into mission in the cities, but hopefully we’ve thought it through.

We haven't really seen church planting by multiplication in North America. It seems to be mostly incremental. Do you see this changing?

I would love for it to change. I see examples of some churches that are multiplying, but I don't see it happening at a constant place or in many locations or many denominations.

I think we have embraced that ideology as a way of giving us an identity and vision, but it actually isn't happening as much as it should. The invitation saying “Let's be a church that multiplies, let’s be a network that's growing exponentially” is desirable, but we still have a lot of churches that need to be planted. We need to ask particular churches, “What is our unique calling within this church multiplication world and how can we as a particular church be generative in the way that God has made us?”

We can be generative by partnering with other churches to plant churches.

We might be a church that raises up a lot of leaders and sends them out but doesn’t exactly create what we might call daughter churches. Instead of saying, “Our church isn't multiplying,” we need to ask ourselves, “How can we be generative, how can we expand the body of Christ though the the unique gifts and abilities we have?”

There are reasons why some churches struggle to be multiplying churches. I'm recognizing some unique calling they may have, and I’m not simply saying, “Because you didn't multiply within 3 years you are never going to do so.” I want to say, “There might be other things you can do to participate in growing the body of Christ in your city or your community.”

What practical steps can churches in a city take to work towards a gospel movement in that city?

We know that churches that are multiplying need to be at the core of the gospel movement in a particular city.

We would love to see gospel movements happening in places and cities. That's one of the reasons why Redeemer City to City exists as an organization.

As for the particular question of how can churches participate in that, we can again ask, “What is our particular contribution in a gospel movement in a city?” The needs are great and we can almost be overwhelmed by the scope of the mission and the scope of the need. I want to see a gospel movement happen in this city where there is Shalom and there's flourishing of the city, and people are coming to faith. What is the unique way that God has designed our church. How can we steward that? These are the fundamental questions the church could ask itself.

When we have theological or geographic affinity with other churches, we could do a few things together rather than operating our churches as silos. The need is great, and a gospel movement assumes that churches are beginning to work together.

As we study the history of revival we see the unique ways God brings about a movement or brings about revival.  It's anteceded and sustained by corporate prevailing Kingdom-centered prayer. Any way that churches and leaders can come together to pray for he whole city, not just their own church and its needs, will be a powerful testament.  If we want to see a gospel movement happening, it has to be preceded by this Kingdom-centered corporate prevailing prayer.

There are evidences of stages that some cities are moving across over a period of time. It probably takes longer than we might have realized or hoped for. But yes, I see new churches being birthed and churches coming together for missions, and that is exciting.

How can we pray for you in your role at Redeemer City to City?

We want to see the city become a cause that the church awakens to, just as the church has thought about poverty or any kind of challenge or struggle in our world. We want the church to be awakened to the city as a cause of mission as never before. So we are thinking of ways of doing that, but we want lots of partnerships and people joining us. We want to be sound with humility and confidence that cities are a cause we need to champion as the church.

The second would be that we find both long term sustainable and fruitful ministry in cities. I think about the church planting families, church planting couples, all that we relate to. I am always praying for them to be able to have long term fruitful ministry in cities - any church leader, any pastor, and any church planter.

I was recently reading a book by Paul Trip called Dangerous Calling which outlined with great skill, the unique challenges of that calling that intensify in pastoral ministry When and then when you come into urban ministry it intensifies even more.

So be praying for us, that God would allow us to have fruitful long term ministry and that we would avoid some of the challenges that are in that dangerous calling and actually thrive and see the body of Christ flourish in that city. So that's how you can be praying for us, for me and others.

Thanks, Mark.

The New Normal

One of the things I wrestled with as we considered the call to plant a church is that some things were going to have to change.

• We would have to be a lot more dependent upon God in prayer.
• We would have to be a lot more intentional about evangelism.
• We would have to be willing to risk a lot more in terms of our comfort and security.

Would we be willing, I asked, to live prayerfully and evangelistically? Were we willing to risk our comfort and our security for the sake of the gospel?

Put that way, there was no way to say no. In a sense, this is the new (old) normal. Not that everyone is called to plant a church, but all of us are called to live prayerfully, evangelistically, and to invest everything that we have for the sake of the Kingdom.

I began to envision what it would look like to not plant a church. In the end, it looked kind of the same.

I'm not surprised that we had to wrestle with that call to plant a church. That's a good thing. I'm a little surprised that I had to wrestle with how prayerful, dependent, and "all in" I was prepared to be. That should have been settled a long time ago. Once you've encountered the grace of Jesus, is there any other way to live?

Planting with New Kingdom Citizens: An Interview with J.D. Payne

One of the most helpful books I've read on church planting is one by J.D. Payne called Discovering Church Planting: An Introduction to the Whats, Whys, and Hows of Global Church Planting. That book led me to J.D.'s excellent website, Missiologically Thinking, as well as his Twitter feed and other writings. In my opinion, J.D. is putting out some of the best stuff out there on church planting these days.

J.D. serves as the pastor for church multiplication with The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. Before moving to Birmingham, he served for ten years with the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention and as an Associate Professor of Church Planting and Evangelism in the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, where he directed the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting.

I'm grateful that J.D. was willing to let me interview him.

There seems to be a renewed emphasis on church planting these days. Why do you think this is so?

I think there are mixed motives behind the emphasis. I would like to say that all of the emphasis is coming from deep theological and missiological convictions related to making disciples of all nations. And I do believe that such beliefs are a driving force among many church planters in North America. There are almost 7000 unreached people groups in the world. The United States is the third largest nation in the world with 76% of the population comprised of non-evangelicals. We also have an estimated 550 unreached people groups living in the United States and Canada.

However, not everything is coming from theological and missiological convictions. 

Church planting is now cool; it is trendy. There was a time in the United States when church planting was a route that some individuals took simply because they could not locate an established church to pastor. Church planting was sometimes viewed as a last resort for a ministry position. A significant cultural shift has now occurred among evangelicals related to the value of church planting in North America. However, when such a value shift occurs, we often find a portion of the population driven by pragmatism and the romanticism of starting something new and avoiding the cultural traditions of an established church that are sometimes troublesome. 

There are so many different models for planting a church. How can we make sense of all the models out there?

Models are important; but they should not be our primary concern. Models are not only developed out of different contexts but also reflect the cultural preferences, gifts, talents, and passions of those that developed such models. Models are helpful. They move us from the theory to field realities. All church planters use models. Because of the cultural differences across the nations represented in the world today, we should approach models as if we are panning for gold. Know the strengths and limitations of some models, but sift them for their golden nuggets that you and your team should apply to your context. Church planting is not about cloning a model. 

Know the principles for church planting and apply them to the people. Think missiologically about the people and then contextualize the methods among that people. Allow the cultural flavor of the new church to come about from the people, rather than bringing a model to them and attempting to make them fit into it. 

The prevailing model of North American church planting is expensive and doesn't scale well. Do you see this changing? 

Yes, I see it changing but not always for the right reasons. For example, some churches, agencies, and denominations are already starting to adjust their strategies and philosophies simply because the money is not there. Pragmatism, rather than theological and missiological convictions, are bringing about changes.

However, some are starting to make healthy changes based on biblical and missiological convictions. Though such parties are small in number at this time, they are working to keep matters biblical, simple, and highly reproducible. 

For the past decade, I (and a handful of others in North America) have been advocating the need to return to the Scriptures and recognize the apostolic nature of church planting. I wrote Discovering Church Planting and The Barnabas Factors with this approach in mind. Especially in post-Christianized contexts, we need to return to small missionary teams that are willing to approach their labors with planned role changes. They begin by doing the work of evangelists. Then they begin teaching obedience to the new disciples in small groups (community). Next, the team leads the group to unite as a local church. The team then works with the church to raise up pastors for the body. Finally, the team begins work elsewhere in order to continue the work of planting a network of churches. It is during this last stage that the team continues to mentor and equip the new pastors of the first church planted. 

The team is a scaffold not a permanent fixture. They must become less in order to empower and release the new believers for multiplication across their social networks. 

I love your definition of church planting as evangelism that results in new churches. What are some of the implications of this definition for how we plant churches?

If we are talking about seeing churches birthed from the harvest fields, then such is primarily an apostolic task. It is seeing churches planted with new Kingdom citizens instead of planting churches with 95-100% long-term Kingdom citizens. It will require us to think about keeping matters simple and reproducible as we teach new believers what it means to obey all that Jesus commanded.

The implications of such a definition involve the removal of the coolness and hip factor from church planting. Think about it. What story is the most exciting to hear: a new church of ten people that was planted last year comprised of 100% new disciples or a church that was planted last year now running 200 people (with 95% long-term Kingdom citizens) with a great praise team, elaborate children’s program, and a practical sermon series for Christian families? We want to hear the latter story, even though it costs $150,000 to plant, is very difficult for the people to reproduce across their social networks, and immediately has 190 people with a multitude of cultural expectations for what it means to be a follower of Jesus and a church in the United States.

There are over four billion people in the world without Jesus—and over two billion who have never heard the gospel. Strategy is a matter of stewardship. In light of this global reality, we North Americans are poor stewards when it comes to church planting strategy. We talk about multiplication, but our strategies do not reflect it.

I am a pastor and presently in my twenty-first year since my call to vocational ministry. I have been—and continue to be—involved in raising up pastors. I am a strong advocate for 40-50 minute, monological, expository sermons (give or take a minute or two ☺ ), great praise teams (I used to play guitar in a band), and excellent children’s programs (I have three young kids)—for established churches mainly comprised of long-term kingdom citizens. However, church planting is missionary work. It is more apostolic and less pastoral. It is about raising up new believers, not working to fulfill the desires of long-term Kingdom citizens. It is about allowing church culture to develop, not bringing church culture to the people. 

In much of North America today, church planting is almost exclusively pastoral. And whenever we approach a missionary task with a pastoral missiology, then we often end up with strategies, methods, and labors that are more designed with the long-term Kingdom citizen in mind. I have written extensively about this matter on my blog:

• Apostolic Missiology: Part 4-It’s Not About Church Planting
• When a Biblical Model is Viewed as Unusual
• Apostolic Missionaries and the Urban Contexts

You moved into a new role last year as Pastor of Church Multiplication at The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham. Can you tell us about your role and how we can pray for you?

Thank you so much for asking. I greatly appreciate that. 

I am incredibly honored and blessed to be able to serve as one of the pastors for a wonderful group of saints. I am so thankful for this faith family. 

I oversee our church planting efforts in North America and work closely with our Global Disciple Making pastor to equip our international missionaries for church planting. We are working closely to integrate the worlds of domestic and international. I also oversee our leadership development process for multiplying small group leaders, pastors (some to serve Brook Hills and some to be sent to serve established churches), and missionaries.

Thanks, J.D.

J. D. Payne serves as the pastor of church multiplication with The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. He has served churches in Kentucky and Indiana and with several church planting teams. He is the author of several books on missions and evangelism and a former seminary professor and missionary. He blogs regularly at jdpayne.org and may be found on Twitter at @ jd_payne.

Learning Missional Community

A month or so ago, I met a couple of people who live in two condo units on the same floor in Toronto. They work together during the day at a Christian ministry, but on their evenings and weekends they’re living intentionally in the condominium to build relationships with neighbours.

I’ve read and listened to a lot of material on missional community, but this is one of the first examples I’ve seen of people living this way in Toronto. Here’s some of what I’ve learned from this couple so far:

Pray. One of the two began praying about living in community and on mission ten years ago. It took nine years before God worked to make it possible. Don’t underemphasize the importance of praying that God will work in your life to make it possible for you to do this.

Don’t do it alone. One of them tried doing this alone, but it didn’t really work. It takes two or more together. People don’t need another friend; they need a community. If you are just one more friend, even a good one, then people see it as just being your personality. When two very different people live on mission together where they live, then people begin to understand that it’s God working in you. Besides, it can be a lot less creepy than if you try to initiate significant relationships alone.

Be intentional and be yourself. Living on mission together is not complicated, but it’s hard. It takes time, which is incredibly costly. Make deliberate decisions to build relationships with those around you, and be yourself. Be honest about your shortcomings and your own struggles.

Eat. Living on mission together, they say, is pretty much one meal after another. You see this in the gospels. You’re going to eat anyway, so use meals as a way to connect relationally with others.

Follow your interests. Use your passions to connect with others. This couple started a writer’s group. Use whatever hobbies or interests you have to build relationships with others.

Keep short accounts. You can’t live on mission together without working through relational issues. Deal with them before they impede God’s work. You will make mistakes; apologize quickly to those around you, both Christians and those who aren’t.

God works through imperfect people. This couple is far from perfect, as are all of us. Don’t wait until you arrive before you start to live on mission.

Trust the Word. One of the two runs a Bible study in the condo. It’s only one of the things they do as they build relationships, and not everybody is interested, but they strongly believe that God does his work as people encounter the power of God’s Word.

Expect small things. Don’t underestimate that God will work in significant ways through seemingly small things. You don’t know what God will do through the one person you love in Jesus’ name. Even if you only ever build deep relationships with six people, God can do a work through those.

This is just some of what I’ve been learning. For more on missional communities, check out some of the following:

Soma School Session Four: Building Missional Communities

Missional Community Resources by Todd Engstrom