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Posts Tagged ‘church strategy’

For Those Who Have Fire In Their Bones

Posted in Christian Missions, Other, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on September 30, 2010| Leave a Comment »

You are not the preacher. You are not the head of anything at church. But you have a great ministry just started, or a great ministry idea that you would like to see get traction and grow.  What do you do now? Here are a few tips from our experience of trying to get Let’s Start Talking established in lots of churches. This is what we have learned from watching people enthusiastic about short-term missions try to work with their home congregation.

  1. Don’t even start unless you are committed to doing whatever it takes to succeed yourself! Lots of people want to start things for other people to do. Just forget it! You should be able to accomplish the ministry yourself—at some level—or you will never get others to buy into it. For LST, this means that if you are not willing to go, you will not be successful in getting other people to go.
  2. Try to get the blessing of church leadership from the very beginning. If the preacher and/or church leaders are opposed to your ministry idea, it is not likely to survive. It might possibly survive if they are indifferent, but the chances are much better if you have their blessing.  Notice, I said blessing, not commitment. See below!
  3. Do not expect to get leadership commitment to your ministry until you have proven that it will be successful! LST actually made this mistake in our Centurion project which launched about three years ago. We asked churches to commit to a goal of sending 100 workers with LST over a five-year period—with no financial commitment whatsoever.  Although a few churches committed, we were absolutely shocked at how resistant most churches were to making any kind of a commitment at all.  We have since modified our approach, so that we only ask for permission to test run LST in their congregation to see if their members have a good experience with it.  Church leaders are much more open to us with this approach.
  4. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Join with established ministries who have proven track records and who can help jumpstart your ministry. So you think your teens should do mission trips to learn to share their faith! Rather than asking your youth minister or some parents to plan and organize such a trip, why not ask a ministry like LST YoungFriends to help you, since we have been planning short-term missions, including special ones for teen groups, for thirty years! If you want to start something for the poor, why not contact existing ministries and partner with them–or after-school programs, or abused women, or English As A Second Language outreach??
  5. Be spiritually prepared to be ignored. If I were a church leader and if I knew what kind of transformation happens to every person who spends two weeks on an LST project, I would do everything in my power to make it possible for every person in the church I was leading to participate—there, I said it as boldly and honestly as I can.  However, the fact is that a very small percentage of Christians really want to engage their faith as actively as most ministries require. If you, as the promoter of your ministry, let the massive indifference discourage you, then you are defeated! You must be willing to do your work without recognition, without popularity, and without any other reward than the smile of the Father!  If you need more than this, you will give up!
  6. God has His own schedule for growth! I love flowers—Sherrylee calls them annuals and perennials and I have a vague idea what that means. But I really love flowering trees. I love the blooms on our fruit trees, I love the beautiful white flowers of the Bradford pear trees, and I really love the Oklahoma redbuds!! The time from seed to bloom is very different for these plants. In reality, only God knows the proper time and season for your ministry to bloom. You can choose to acknowledge God’s sovereignty here—or you can try to set your own schedule. Occasionally, we may be able to hothouse something into rapid growth—but these efforts are rarely long-lived. I recommend you let God be in control.
  7. If you are called by God to a ministry, you will never be truly happy until you are answering the call—so get on with it!  I love the story of Jeremiah, called by God to be a prophet to the nations, who yells at God and says, “You deceived me! I did what you called me to do and I’m having a terrible time! In fact, I’ve tried to quit several times . . . but I couldn’t because your word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones–and I can’t keep it in.” (Jer. 20:7-9)

One of the biggest problems ministries have is surviving the exhilarating start-up phase.  I’ll give you some suggestions about that in the next post.

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Is Your Church Slipping Towards Unitarian Universalism?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2010| 7 Comments »

While we were in Vermont and Massachusetts last week, I saw a large number of Unitarian Universalist congregations, mostly meeting in buildings that were at one time Congregationalist churches.  I did some work on the Puritans a few years back, so I began thinking about the history of these churches—and I started to get a bad feeling.  Here’s the super-zipped history, so you can see why.

Although historically tied to the Presbyterian church, this new movement eventually separated themselves from that denomination. As they pursued their independent study of the Bible, they became convinced that the only true path to reform was to return to the practices of the first century church, including adult conversion and the pattern of congregational autonomy.

This new movement flourished, but with time, because there was no higher authority than the local congregation, the movement splintered into Arminianism (legalism), Deism (social gospel), transcendentalism (spirit-filled), and Unitarianism (liberal)—parentheses are my translation into 21st century labels.

I thought this could have been a description of Restoration Movement history to this point in time. If you feel that way too, then read on to see where the future might lie!

Within two hundred years of its beginnings in America, many of the most influential Congregationalist ministers were Unitarians (a belief in the singleness of God and a rejection of a trinitarian understanding, including a rejection of the exclusive claims of Jesus because He is the Son of God).

During this same historical period, the doctrine of universal salvation was at its zenith in America. Universalism teaches that a loving God would not create humans, then send them to hell or eternal punishment.  It is no surprise that after rejecting the divinity of Jesus and opening the doctrinal door to acceptance of everything under God, Unitarians quite easily moved into universal salvation as well. It would be the natural step following their move to a more syncretic understanding of God.

Today, these beautiful old church buildings in New England are no longer Christian churches; rather, they are filled with the great grandchildren of those early Restorationists.  Unitarian Universalists profess the following in their own words (http://www.uua.org/visitors/6798.shtml ):

There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote:

  • The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
  • Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
  • Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;
  • A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
  • The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;
  • The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
  • Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Unitarian Universalism (UU) draws from many sources:

  • Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life;
  • Words and deeds of prophetic women and men which challenge us to confront powers and structures of evil with justice, compassion, and the transforming power of love;
  • Wisdom from the world’s religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;
  • Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God’s love by loving our neighbors as ourselves;
  • Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science, and warn us against idolatries of the mind and spirit.
  • Spiritual teachings of earth-centered traditions which celebrate the sacred circle of life and instruct us to live in harmony with the rhythms of nature.

I want to think that my church could never slide down this path, but I do recognize some of these footprints in the road we are traveling.  I do believe that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” (G. Santayana).

And if this is not what I want for my grandchildren, what must I do today?

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Can Boomers Redeem Themselves in Our Churches?

Posted in Christian Culture, Other, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 19, 2010| 1 Comment »

I was in Abilene, Texas, yesterday for a conference with those who minister to retirees in our churches. The group was not large, but it was quite interesting. Much of the program was really sharing what churches are doing as they begin to realize not only the challenges of a graying population, but the potential for the kingdom.

Here are a few of the facts that drove ministers to this conference and should drive every church into re-thinking and re-visioning its ministry with members aged 55 and above.

  • In 2000, Baby Boomers (born between 1946-60) made up 28% of the U.S. population. In 2020 it will be 36%.
  • Boomers own 77% of all financial assets in the United States. They also account for 80% of luxury travel.
  • Boomers believe old age to start between 72-78. (They will not join any group with the word senior in it nor any other of our cute euphemisms.)
  • Boomers intend to stay active. Here is what Newsweek (2/16/2010) reported, “These days, baby boomers don’t see retirement as a withdrawal from activity but as a new adventure. Many seniors will travel, volunteer, consult, and remain active, in addition to leaving some afternoons free for golfing and spending time with grandchildren. “It is a generation that is far more comfortable and even addicted in some ways to change and newness and adventures,” says Dychtwald. “They are going to pioneer a lifestyle where people reinvent themselves again and again and again.”

If you want to think about how this applies to your congregation, then think about how your membership would look if 35-40% of your members were 65 or older.  This is where all of our congregations are headed—if we are not there already.

Most of us tend to think churches are dying if all we see is gray hair in the pews. As Boomers re-invent the retirement years, however, church leaders must re-vision the potential for good that retired Boomers have for the kingdom.  For instance:

If Boomers are going to travel and remain active, they need to be challenged to revision their retirement as the time for a new mission, a new faith adventure! Re-read the above paragraph from Newsweek and apply it to Christian retirees. What can your church do to focus this energy and wanderlust for God?   LST has seen a huge boom already in retired Christians going on short-term mission projects.

If Boomers own so much of the purchasing power in the U.S., they need to be challenged to be generous. You may be suppressing a cynical laugh at this, but let me suggest that instead of targeting the cash in their bank accounts, appeal to them to use their legacy, i.e., their estate, as an extraordinary resource for the kingdom.

And here is perhaps one of the most significant unknown factors that I can share with you:  the Millenials (1980-2000) have much more respect for Age than we Boomers did for those before us. The next 25 years are a great opportunity for multi-generational synergy.  We have an opportunity to escape things like worship wars that are driven primarily by generational differences, and, instead, see whole families—extended families, led by the grandparents sometimes—serving God in active and generous ways.  The Millennials like the old and the Boomers want to relate to the young because they don’t think of themselves as old!  What can you do with that phenomenon??

God knows we Boomers as a group have brought a lot of sin into the world. Perhaps these next twenty-five years are our opportunity for redemption.  Wise church leaders will take advantage of this.

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Tips for Good Short-Term Missions: Part 1 – Church Leaders

Posted in Christian Missions, Short-Term Missions, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I have been directly involved in organizing short-term missions (STM) since I was a freshman in college—45 years ago.  Since 1980, Sherrylee and I have sent over 6000 American Christians on thousands of short-term mission projects in sixty-five different countries through the Let’s Start Talking Ministry.

We have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of short-term missions, but we have always believed that if done well, they were of great value.  For the next few days, I’ll give you some of the things we have learned over the years to help you do short-term missions better.

First, to the church leaders who are asked to send and to support short-term missions, here are a few suggestions for distinguishing the more worthy from the less worthy:

1. Who will be benefited by this short-term mission effort? Some of the possibilities are the Worker, the sending church, the hosting church, and the unchurched/unbelievers that are touched by the work.  Is the work intended to just be a good experience for the Americans going and the encouragement it gives to the local congregation sending them? If so, don’t describe it as mission work. It is edification.  If it is for the hosting church, then it is church nurturing, not missions. If it is for the unchurched/unbelievers, then it is evangelism.  All of these are worthy goals, so decide which you want to support.

2. Does the host really want these people to come? I attended a meeting of local evangelists in a foreign country a while back and the common complaint from all of them was how they felt required to host short-term groups who wanted to come work with them—regardless of whether the group would actually benefit their work—because the group was from a church that supported their work.   It was often assumed that every mission site would love to have a group of 30 people appear on their doorstep, but for many obvious reasons, that is not always the case.  Make sure a real invitation from the site has been issued before you go/send.

3. What’s the purpose and how will it be accomplished? Make sure that the activities match the purpose.  If the purpose is to share the Gospel with people, establishing an obvious way to contact people who do not believe is critical. Then, how will the workers begin a conversation with them? There is room for a variety of purposes, but the activities must match the purpose.

4. What’s the plan for the time on site? The very nature of short-term missions means that good use of the time is critical. Showing up to “do whatever the missionary wants” is simply a way to shift all the responsibility on the local people to do all the thinking and preparation.

5. Have the workers prepared to go? Let’s Start Talking provides all workers with a minimum of 20 hours of preparation. Our college students receive more like 50 hours for their mission projects. There are good resources out there for individuals and groups to use in preparation.  Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use the expertise of short-term mission leaders with lots of experience.

6. Is the cost appropriate? I do not believe at all in the “most bang for the buck” model of missions—but we will talk about that later.  But I also know that spending $3000/person for a five-day short-term mission project when two of the days are mostly getting to and from the site does not appear on the surface to be a wise use of that money.  Church leaders should weigh the costs against all of the outcomes, then make a prayerfully informed decision.

Next, I’ll offer a few tips for those trying to decide about a short-term mission trip—or not!

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Great Churches Use Holy Spirit Model of Missions

Posted in Great Churches Series, tagged , , , , on April 26, 2010| 2 Comments »

In our fellowship, fulfilling the Great Commission is the responsibility of local congregations, not a large sending agency or mission board.  Let me put it another way:  for the most part, men (elders and missions committees) who have never done foreign missions nor received special training of any sort are deciding who goes to the field, how they will work when they get there, how long they will stay, how much they will receive for personal support and for working funds, and if they are doing a effective work.  Does this make sense to you?

These good men—all volunteers who can be commended for their willingness and the best intentions—are put in untenable positions of controlling large amounts of money, the lives of numerous individuals whom they may or may not know, and are answering to a congregation that usually knows even less about both the people and the mission efforts.

What these men naturally do is fall back on a model they are familiar with from their own experiences. Most are business people so they use one of the following models:

  • Business model: you hire a person that convinces you they can do the job, you pay them enough, but not too much, you give them time to prove themselves, and if they don’t produce, you let them go and look for somebody else.
  • Investment model: You invest in either a person or a site! You put what you can afford into the investment (which changes often with your priorities), you watch it for a while, and if it produces good results, you hold onto it—until a better investment comes along
  • Venture Capital Model: You find a young entrepreneur who has a good business plan, you decide whether you like the person or the plan enough to put money into it. You establish timetables and benchmarks to evaluate the work, and if you are displeased with the person or they do not meet the pre-established conditions, then you simply stop funding them.

Granted, some better congregations actually attempt to educate themselves about missions, usually by either attending missions conferences or bringing in missions consultants.  No doubt these churches do missions better—for a while, but what I see is that there is such high turnover in missions committees and/or elderships that all it takes is one new person on a committee or one experienced person dropping off for the whole mission program of that congregation to be tossed into the air and reinvented.

Here are some positive suggestions for great churches:

  1. Search out people in church (men and/or women) who have mission experience—the longer the better–and give them the mandate to coordinate your mission program.
  2. If no one in your congregation has mission experience, then give up the desire to control some mission work until God gives your church someone with the gift of missions. Instead, send some of your members to the field on short-term mission projects to work with established missionaries and contribute directly to works that you have experienced and trust—with no strings attached.
  3. When looking at new mission work, consider creating a spiritual relationship with this work instead of a financial relationship! The two key words here are spiritual and relationship.  When your church figures out what it means to have a spiritual relationship with a missionary or site first, then the financial side of it will be framed completely differently. Completely rid yourself of the employer/employee relationship model. That one does not work well.
  4. Base the length of your congregation’s spiritual/financial commitment on something other than results. If you believe that “God gives the increase” (1 Cor. 3:6), then are you not trying to evaluate God’s own work. The planting and watering are all your missionaries can do, and for that they should be evaluated.

We need a new model for missions! I don’t have this worked out, but I believe it is probably the Acts 13 model:

While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off.

Let me just put this verse into my own words:

As the Antioch church was together, worshipping the Lord and fasting, it became clear to them that two of their leaders Barnabas and Saul were called by God’s Spirit to go out from them to deliver the Good News to others. They knew these men, one who had been their mentor at the establishment of the congregation and the other who was a fairly new convert from Judaism, but had been gifted by God to work with non-Jews.  The both wanted to go to their home regions, but they didn’t really have a specific schedule, route, or cost estimate for the time afterwards.  After further prayer and fasting, the church still recognized these as God’s plans, so they  sent them with all they needed that the church could gather, they put their hands on them as a symbol of their relationship, and with great love and anticipation, they sent them off.

Great churches will use the Holy Spirit Model for missions. I cannot fill in the details of this model for you, but I believe God will—if you will!

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GREAT CHURCHES AND EMERGENT CHURCHES- PART 11b

Posted in Great Churches Series, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2010| 5 Comments »

I suspect that it is people like me that drove the postmoderns to emergence!

As a college student back in the late 1960s, attending a Christian college, I volunteered twelve weeks each summer for four years to work on mission campaigns in the northeast United States.  Our teams went door-to-door, inviting people to study the Bible with us.  We typically had 30-40 Bible studies per week with people of all faiths and no faith. Our single goal was to help each person to be born again—as we understood the process.

We were not mean-spirited, but we often retweeted Paul’s words: “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.” We did not doubt that what we were teaching was true—for everyone.  We were typically immature. I have certainly learned better what the gospel is and can present it more appropriately now, but we were not at all unusual for those times.

Recently, a college student wrote to me, requesting funds for her mission trip.  She wrote:  “We will be helping in any way that we can at a children’s home by painting, serving food, ministering to churches, and even playing with the children. . . . In this short time we hope to spread the word of God to the homeless children . . .  and help them see that there is hope.”

We will definitely contribute to this Christian girl’s mission, but I found her description of this mission trip a bit disconcerting, and all the more so because I know from our own work with students that she is as mainstream in her time as I was in mine.  She has a heart full of compassion, but is not yet aware that “people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4).

Great churches know that compassionate service is integral to evangelism. Every church should be known for its compassion; every church should be known in its community—perhaps the world—for loving the unloved, helping the needy, protecting the weak, and serving everyone.  Then their message will be heard in a more receptive context.

Here’s the problem: virtually all of our young people—I’m talking about under 29 years old—understand missions as the Emergents have defined it, i.e., living a life of compassionate service because you are a follower of Jesus. In doing so you are redeeming the creation here and now.  And who can argue with this wonderful description of missions—but incomplete!

Also, they are right that churches/Christians have separated evangelism (missions) and compassionate service (benevolence) by what we today would call silo thinking.  Look at traditional church budgets for proof. I’m glad to be among those called back to a better understanding of our mission.

I do know, however, that a growing aversion to telling the Good News as God’s truth for all creation with words— typical of the Emergents and many of the youth in our churches—is everywhere. Our churches have substituted service projects for proclamation; our youth mission trips are exclusively service projects.  Two young ministers that I have heard recently both have publically preached the need for less emphasis on evangelism and more on Christian service—as if these two were mutually exclusive.

Great churches know that evangelism is integral to compassion. One of the saddest stories I know is about a young woman who was part of our ministry for a couple of years, sharing her faith boldly with people all over the world. She decided to spend an extended time in Germany, where she began sharing the story of Jesus with a Muslim asylum seeker who was very open to the conversation.  After a couple of months of conversation, this young Christian abandoned her faith in Jesus—completely. The reason she gave was that this Muslim person was more charitable and more loving, serving others with greater concern and greater humility than she had ever experienced in herself or the Christians she knew.

Jesus healed and preached. In fact, in every NT passage the order is first preaching, then healing—if that makes any difference.  If He had healed every sick person and raised every dead person, but had not preached the kingdom of God, how would the masses have avoided dying in their sins?  If He had only preached, would anyone have listened?

Since I started with my own confession, let me end with repentance. For thirty years, my wife and I have led the Let’s Start Talking Ministry. The method has been the same for all those years: LST workers offer to help people practice their English (compassionate service) while using the story of Jesus in the Gospels as the text (evangelism). Our experience is that most people become interested in what they are reading and begin to ask questions of the Christian, which leads to a natural conversation about Jesus, which for some, leads to saving faith.

I do believe that ministry and message are married in our method; however, the balance is probably 10% service and 90% evangelism.  In the future, I am committed to introducing more opportunities for our short-term mission teams to be involved in more compassionate service wherever we send them.  My hope is that we will include the local Christians as well as those who are not yet Christians in this service, so that working shoulder to shoulder, doing good, the non-Christians will see that we Christ followers so love the world!

That’s my plan. Yours may need to balance the other direction. I do believe that every ministry of compassion should not just have a vague goal of hopefully someday somebody noticing that we are Christians.  Each should give prayerful thought and planning to how people who are helped will learn about Jesus.

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Great Churches and the Emerging Church – Part 11a

Posted in Great Churches Series, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2010| 3 Comments »

Did Jesus come to “seek and save the lost” or to practice “pure and undefiled religion” by showing compassion on the helpless and needy?  Are Christians about declaring the Good News or about giving cups of cold water?  Does the word missional mean evangelistic or does it mean benevolent?

These are not new questions to those who are widely read in current religious thinking. You will recognize some of the tension brought to Christianity from what is generally known as the emerging church or emergent church movement of the last decade in the U.S., a movement that tries to exchange what they perceive as the “modern” (read rational) out of Christianity in exchange for a “postmodern” approach, one deemed more relevant for our current context.

Allow me to jump to some of the conclusions about evangelism from this movement without providing their arguments—because this is not an attempt to sort out the entire emerging church movement. Emergents generally believe that

  1. Evangelistic  Christians have focused too much on eternal redemption at the expense of living with compassion in the world.
  2. Conversation is more appropriate than proclamation.
  3. The interpretation of any message, including the biblical text, is a private matter.
  4. Insisting on boundaries that contain the gospel, the church or the saved offends, hindering  the spread of the Christian experience.

Bruce McLaren, a leading spokesperson for the emergent group, tells  me where these premises lead:

I don’t believe making disciples must equal making adherents to the Christian religion. It may be advisable in many (not all!) circumstances to help people become followers of Jesus and remain within their Buddhist, Hindu or Jewish contexts … rather than resolving the paradox via pronouncements on the eternal destiny of people more convinced by or loyal to other religions than ours, we simply move. . . .   (Brian D. McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 2004) 260, 262, 264. )

As is often the case, the gravest danger in these premises  may not be in their fallacies but from their truthfulness.

  • When Christians do not love the world the way God so loved the world, our message is hollow. “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness” (Matt. 9:35). Preaching without works of compassion is absent of living proof. Compassion without preaching  is absent the Good News!
  • Conversation is often more appropriate than proclamation. The conversations of Jesus far outnumber the public sermons.  My fear, however, is that the Emergents are really not talking about public versus private, but rather about the truth of the content.  Whereas, proclamation speaks “as the oracle of God,” a conversation may be simply an exchange of similar (or dissimilar) opinions of equal value. Christians should know how to “speak the truth in love” whether publically or intimately.
  • One is tempted to equate the emergent argument of private interpretation with the modern American protestant version of sola Scriptura, which is every man with his Bible starting his own church on the street corner, but that would not be accurate. What this argument really reflects is the postmodern rejection of objective truth.  Since Jesus said he is the Truth, I do not believe Christ followers can hold to “private interpretation.  Neither did the Apostle Peter. (2 Peter 1:20).
  • Again, the Emergents are correct. Boundaries offend; exclusivity offends. Jesus offended. The Story offended. The Church offended. The Acts of the Apostles are full of offense by those who believed that Jesus was raised from the dead.  Understandably, it is the gloating and self-righteousness that Emergents see in Christians that pushes them to the opposite wall.

I live and work in a very evangelistic environment—in the traditional sense. The church I attend is also overtly and aggressively evangelistic—and I’m glad.  Yet even among us, it is not rare to hear watered-down versions of the Emergent heresies.  Kool-aid is watered down, but still can be poisonous. I’ll continue these thoughts tomorrow.

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Observations on Great Churches # 7 – Age of Conversion!

Posted in Great Churches Series, tagged , , , , , , on March 26, 2010| 1 Comment »

The Pew Forum recently surveyed the changing religious scene in America, and although not highlighted, one of the obvious conclusions from the report is that most religious decisions, including conversion, abandonment, and switching, are made before a person’s 24th birthday.  (http://pewforum.org/Faith-in-Flux.aspx)

My own experience is the same. Other workers in Germany often teased our mission team about not having planted a church, just a youth group! (Notice the just in that sentence!) We did have mostly children, university students, and young working adults.  But ten years after we began, we had a church of young marrieds, which after another few years was a church of young families. The church had matured into a vibrant community of faith.

Great churches focus evangelistic efforts on young people! Most churches focus on 30-50 year olds and then wonder why they don’t grow. Most people have already made their religious decisions and very few—comparatively—are in a searching mode any longer.  Here are my suggestions for focusing on young people:

  1. Every new church plant should be near a university and should include a campus ministry as one of its main thrusts. I would include a particular outreach to international students on that campus.
  2. Churches should plan events like camps, weekends, concerts, for highschoolers from the community, not just church kids (but these are great for church kids too!) These should have priority over gospel meetings, lectureships, and potlucks for adults.
  3. Worship services do not have to be completely focused on youth, but if your services are exclusively for the 50 year olds, then that is who you will attract (Not!).  What can you do for the teens/college-aged youth in your service?
  4. Youth mission trips should be a high priority for your church, and you should take non-Christian youth with you! There is no better evangelism than an unbeliever seeing a believer in action.
  5. Special Bible studies for youth—and not just a Sunday school class—are essential. Unaffiliated youth are not going to get up and come to Sunday school, but they might meet you at Starbucks on Thursday afternoon after school for a small group study.
  6. The minister and church leaders other than a youth minister MUST be involved with this outreach. Especially 18-24 year-olds want to be considered full members, fully adult, but in some ways, they don’t even understand what that means yet. Mentoring groups are great for this age group.
  7. Church budgets should reflect the emphasis on seeking young people.

I’m sure many of you have other ideas which I would love to see you share. Remember, I’m not talking about maintaining the church kids—although that will be a byproduct—but rather, reaching out to younger people during their age of decision.  If I were going to the mission field now, I would focus 80% of my time and energy on people 25 years old or less.

Question: What portion of your church’s time, resources, and energy are focused on evangelistic outreach to young people?

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Observations On Great Churches #6 – “Without Prejudice!”

Posted in Great Churches Series, tagged , , , on March 24, 2010| 1 Comment »

As a young missionary, I remember (with embarrassment now) my own disappointment the first time I visited a mission church in Paris and realized that although there were 40-50 people in their worship service, virtually none of them were Parisians, only a handful were even French, and the rest were internationals from the French-speaking world.

Let’s Start Talking, which Sherrylee and I direct, works with many Japanese churches, who breathe the air of a culture with strong tendencies toward uniformity, conformity, and all things Japanese. Some Japanese leaders are very hesitant to invite foreign Christians to work beside them and reticent to think of the international communities in their city as a mission field. They want national churches—churches that look like them. I have seen the same prejudice (and I use this word consciously, but not pejoratively) on every continent, including North America.  Such churches rarely thrive.  Great churches overcome prejudices and present the Gospel to all people whom God brings into their lives.

  1. 1. Great churches see their community as it is today, not as it was! From the US 2000 Census data:  Between 1990 and 2000I the foreign-born population increased by 57 percent, from 19.8 million to 31.1 million, compared with an increase of 9.3 percent for the native population and 13 percent for the total U.S. population.  A small Texas city has a colony of Armenian Turks. A Michigan suburb is home to thousands of Albanians. Chinese residents are the second largest number of foreign-born population after Hispanics.  The neighborhood has changed!  The world has come to our doorstep. Has the church body changed with it?
  2. 2. Great churches find strength in diversity. The church in Paris that reaches out to Africans and uses them as well as other Internationals in church leadership has created “growing edges” for greater outreach and service. Instead of serving one community, this church now serves at least three—and sends the message of “welcome” to even more.
  3. 3. Great churches find resources in diversity. No longer (if it ever was) is the U.S. church the headwater for all missional gifts; African churches, Korean churches, Brazilian churches, yes, Chinese churches are sending resources and people out throughout the world with power, vision, and the gospel. These precious resources are used by great churches—regardless of nation of origin.

I’m just pretty sure that the greatest churches will reflect “the glory and honor of the nations” which the Apostle John saw in the New Jerusalem (Revelation 21).

Questions:  Does your church intentionally seek to reflect “the glory and honor of the nations?” How?

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Observations On Great Churches #4: Teams vs. A Lone Ranger

Posted in Great Churches Series, tagged , , , on March 9, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Perhaps the fastest growing work in western Europe since the mid-fifties was a congregation that grew to 150+ in about seven years time—three times as large as most churches of Christ in Europe! LST worked with that church for several years, so after thinking about why this work was so successful, I came to the conclusion that the significant difference was that it was a large team effort!  Yes, there was a main missionary family (Americans), but they had recruited two other families (non-Americans) for the core team, AND  they always had 10-15 mission interns with 1-2 year commitment, AND THEN they invited short-term mission groups for 2-6 week stints throughout the year.  The total effort then was about 20-25 team members working all of the time and 5-20 additional workers for special efforts.  In our forty-year relationship with the work in Europe, I have never seen this much manpower focused in any one location.

Quite the contrary. Sherrylee and I were part of a three-family team to Germany in the 70s. Practically from the moment we arrived, other congregations and other workers begged us to split up and not hoard so many workers in just one place. Between external pressures and internal conflict, most mission teams do not make it to a fifth-year anniversary intact.

The team approach to missions in South America is exemplary with great encouragement from Continent of Great Cities. I know of a small handful of Asian churches that are the result of great team efforts, but there may be more.  The principle in North American churches looks different, but is, in fact, the same.

 What About US churches?

Vibrant, growing churches among us do have a visionary leader, but one of the primary characteristics of a strong leader, I believe, is the ability to build a great team of co-workers. The current debate about whether congregations are better off staff driven or elder driven may be slightly out of focus. I would suggest that churches grow that are team driven, and that team are best composed of those in the congregation with the gift of leadership (Romans 12:8) The title that one wears, whether it be minister or elder does not bestow the gift of leadership. Ministers and staff may function as employees, elders may function as a board of directors, but a team of leaders, each exercising his/her own gifts and who can resist the temptation to wish they had other people’s gifts—or even worse, ALL the gifts—this team is a real example of the body of Christ functioning as it should. 

Jesus chose twelve and traveled with many more; Paul always traveled with an entourage; Moses wisely gave up his role as sole judge and shared it with many. Is your church led by a team?

 9 Two are better than one,
       because they have a good return for their work:

 10 If one falls down,
       his friend can help him up.
       But pity the man who falls
       and has no one to help him up!

 11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
       But how can one keep warm alone?

 12 Though one may be overpowered,
       two can defend themselves.
       A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

                                    Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

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