We’ve had some good input lately on why we’re not seeing church planting movement in the developing world to the same degree we’re seeing in the global south.
If that’s the case we need to find something to do while nothing’s happening.
Here’s 20 suggestions of what to do while we’re not multiplying churches.
- Call yourself an apostle. Have some business cards printed. Hand them around.
- Throw lots of money at subsidizing unhealthy, declining churches.
- Throw money at “experimental missional initiatives†and never evaluate their effectiveness.
- Set goals for multiplying new churches but don’t make it clear who is responsible.
- Make someone responsible but don’t give them any real authority, discretionary time or sufficient funding. Change the appointment every two years. After ten years, save money by retiring the position and making everyone responsible.
- Appoint a committee to undertake a study and write a report for the leadership group. Wait three years, then do it again.
- Hire a consultant to undertake a study and write a report. Wait three years then do it again.
- Appoint the wrong people to plant churches. When they fall over say, “Church planting doesn’t work.â€
- When you see a healthy church plant say, “Yes it’s growing but it’s not really a Reformed/Baptist/Assemblies of God/Presbyterian/Methodist/New Vine/etc (choose one) church.â€
- Require pioneering leaders to be theologically trained before they can plant a church.
- Throw your best leaders at your biggest problems, not at your greatest opportunities.
- Watch pioneering leaders exit your movement and comment on their lack of commitment.
- Reward pioneering leaders with promotion. Get them away from the front line. Harness their drive to keep the institutional wheels turning.
- In the 1960′s change the word “missions†to “missionâ€. To usher in the new millennium change “mission†to “missional†. Around 2010 plan to change “missional†to “postmissionalâ€.
- Agree to plant new churches when: (a) You’re large enough (b) You’re healthy enough (c) You have the leaders to give away (d) You have the money to spare (e) God has clearly shown you it’s time (f) When the cow jumps over the moon (g) Any or all of the above.
- Run workshops on church planting. Hold conferences on church planting. Offer a course at your theological college on church planting. Do nothing to follow up the people who show an interest. Make sure only experts like me get to teach. Keep the practitioners away from the students. Keep the students in the classroom.
- Grow your church, its facilities, staff and budget as BIG as you can. Let your vision stop at your car park. Let church history end with you. Let the Kingdom dream die.
- Set ridiculous but catchy sounding goals like 500 in 5 years, or 2,000 by 2,000. Three years after the target date expires set new goals. Don’t forget to change the dates!
- Modernize your theology then PostModernize your theology. Remove evangelism and church planting from the centre of God’s mission in the world. When decline hits make sure the paid professionals are the last to feel the pinch.
- Lastly, set up a blog on church planting. Link to other bloggers on church planting. They link to you. Add smoke and mirrors.
12 Comments
There is to much here for me to comment on specifically but great post. It would be great if you could write a piece on what fears keep churches from planing new churches. (i guess that is #15)
Carl
good blogging dud
wow. I am so glad to find your blog that is kind of impressive. it makes me think more about church planting as I am taking “Church Planting” class. you have got good writings that help me out while I was searching some stuff. ^^
Can I dare to suggest a possible #21?!!
Adopt a Calvinistic theology of double-predestination, fake a humble posture, and suggest it would be utterly arrogant to mess with God’s sovereign election by trying to plant a church, coz it would smell too much like evangelism. Move somewhere out past Mildura and start an olive plantation.
- Alister
Great list, Steve! I’m impressed. This is really good satirical humor, a creative side of you I’ve never seen before. Where has it been hiding? Hope you’ll do more.
Steve,
I’ve got to say I really resonate with your social commentary on the church, I live in the city where my denomonation is “headquartered” and nothing has made me more disillusioned with my church than being close to and privy to the red-tape and generally frustrating stuff you tapped into in this post… that being said…
what’s with # 10?
Require pioneering leaders to be theologically trained before they can plant a church.
That sounds like a GREAT idea to me. All gusto and little or no theological training usually makes a bad pastor/church planter. To paraphrase Stanley Hauerwas, we should care more about our pastors being theologically trained than our doctors, but for some reason we think that caring for souls isn’t anywhere near as important as doing surgery. It might be easy enough to find someone “gung-ho” enough to make an energetic church planter, but what if this person has no concept of how to lead a community in ordering their lives around the church calendar, how to engage thoughtfully and theologically the questions of the congregation, or lead a community into radical discipleship to Jesus?
All too often people speak as if theological education is mutually exclusive with being high-energy, orgainized, etc. Theological education will compliment and sharpen the passions of the best churc planters. I don’t know if a healthy understanding of Christology sunk any church plants or not, but if it did I suspect the church wasn’t very Christian in the first place.
Charlie, you raise a very important point. Let me thing about it and get back to you. Off this weekend with our home group to the mountains. . .
The way i figure the sarcastic tone in this post means one of three things;
a. Steve is passionately concerned for the mission of Jesus spreading through churches planting churches.
b. Steve is frustrated at the ridiculous behavior that movements often do in the name church planting.
c. Steve is an Aussie with a great sense of humour who wanted to stir up movement leaders to critically evaluate their decisions.
The church needs to be challenged by a sharp prophetic edge if we are to realign our priorities!!!! Well said Steve.
Charlie
Had a chance to think about your questions/points. Here are a few jumbled thoughts.
There appears to be an inverse relationship between formal theological training delivered in the classroom and effectiveness in church planting and leadership.
Here’s a link to a good case study: http://www.steveaddison.net/2006/01/25/methodists-and-baptists-on-the-us-frontier.html
This is not an iron-clad law. Just a trend. The Sydney Anglican MTS program integrates formation in knowledge, ministry skills and spiritual growth: http://www.steveaddison.net/2006/01/16/mts-grows-leaders.html
If Jesus is our model, leadership development for the church cannot just mirror the Western academic model.
You’ll find more food for thought on this issue under the category: Rapid mobilization; http://www.steveaddison.net/category/general/rapid-mobilization/
Steve,
I can see how the more academicly trained theologian wouldn’t be (and often aren’t) the most “effective” church planters. Two things come to mind here though in response to that. One, Theological seminaries absolutely need a more holistic model of education. To just educate the western academic mind of a student is not to completely form a student theologically. Mike King of YouthFront among others are dreaming of ways to make seminary education more holistic, more monastic, more bodily and communal. I think that is a start in the right direction. The other thing that comes to mind is what do we mean when we say “effective” in church planting? Does starting a church that eventually moves out of a living room and into a building constitiute an “effective” church plant? What if this new church is theologically shallow and does not call Christians to radical discipleship, but rather to a Purpose Driven Life? Something tells me that while the “academic” type wouldn’t be as gifted in “growing” a bigger church, they might be more equipped to grow a healthier and more formative one. Perhaps a lot of the problem really does lie in our current model of Seminary education, nonetheless, I would still prefer church planters in my own denomonation to have good theology in addition to their church planting zeal. I certianly believe that good church planting and good theology are not mutually exclusive. Perhaps it is the case that in teaching good theology we often teach a lot more, through the way education is structured, that undoes a lot of good things church planters had going for them in the first place. I think if that’s the case we need to look at new creative ways to do theological training, not give the whole endeavor a pass because it has been found to make church planters “ineffective.”
Great list. Reminds me of 10 Warning Signs You May Be An Obnoxious Christian
thanks,
Bob
So true, it’s funny! Just a comment on the theology feedback. Theology is only purposeful if it is spoken through the Holy Spirit. I can quote scripture after scripture but have the biggest religious demon/spirit. Unless Christians learn to move in the power and presence of God nothing will work. We seem to forget that it’s the Holy Spirit that teaches us and can teach through us if we are doing His will. Too many Christians are becoming dried up spiritually and feeding a religious demon by going to Bible Collage(knowledge puffed up). Would anyone give John the Baptist the time of day in the year 2007? Or what about David, no qualifications or professionalism? But what they had in common was they did the will of God and were sold out. It’s going to take more than a degree in theology. It’s going to take radical, fire filled, sold out believers who know their God and Bible and are willing to humble themselves and work together under the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Christians are leaving the Church system because of the lack of anointing and leading of the Holy Spirit. They are fed up with programs, money doctrines and other false doctrines like covering and submission. Basically there is too much control in the Church system and control is the sin of witchcraft (it is witchcraft). The Church needs to die to itself and let God arise and take His place. Jesus needs to be glorified and uplifted in the Church.
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