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This post is somewhat of a follow up to this post and my experience last week at the Exponential Conference.

There has been this debate/conversation in the church world over a philosophy of doing church.  It typically is cast as an either or.  You can either be an attractional church or missional church.

I have always wondered, “But shouldn’t we be attractive to those not in church?”

And at the same time I have wondered, “Jesus certainly said to GO, so we need to live missionally as well.”

Two things really helped clarify a distinction that we have to be careful about:

In The Tangible Kingdom, Halter and Smay present there alternative church lifestyle as A way and not THE way.

The real meat of the book comes at the end where they describe the kind of life that creates incarnational communities.  They offer a different way because of the central question to the book (in my words):

Does the way we typically do church where so much focus is on the Sunday service prohibit or limit our ability to actually be with and minister to people?

Their answer a lot of the time is yes.

So, their focus has been on getting their faith communities to be with people and use Sunday mornings mainly for the purpose of vision casting and encouragement but not outreach. Outreach is what happens when life touches life in a conversation or an act of service.

Unlike so many books that advocate this, they do not tell everyone that is involved in an attractional form of church to leave do what they do.  Instead, they encourage anyone that resonates with what they say to experiment within their context.

And then a second clarifying thing: This past week at the Exponential Conference, Alan Hirsch said something that really turned a light bulb on for me.  He said that a better word for “attractional” is “extractional,” because that’s the danger of only focusing on Sunday morning.  People are extracted from their mission field to spend more time at a church building.

If I’ve learned anything in planting Suncrest-East it’s that people naturally want to make church about a building or place, and it’s not!  So the tension I wrestle with is this:  How do we gather for the sake of cooperate worship and teaching without making it all about Sunday morning?

And this: “How do I as a pastor, not just work in the church and on the church but live missionally?

I’m writing this several thousand feet above the earth. It’s an appropriate place to be as I am trying to capture in a few words a bird’s eye view of my Exponential Conference experience. For me the ultimate question is, “What am I taking away?”

I have a ton of notes.

I have several specific statements I wrote down as “takeaways.”

And one reinvigorated desire to join Jesus in transforming the world.

It’s so easy to get caught up in the daily grind…even as a pastor…and lose sight of my calling.

Church planting has increasingly become a part of that calling. 4 years ago I came to Suncrest with a desire to get closer to the church planting world. 2 years ago I started on a track to launch our East campus (a hybrid of church planting). 6 months ago we launched Suncrest-East.

I believe that church and campus planting is the most significant evangelistic effort the church can undertake. By starting life-giving churches and campuses in communities that desperately need them Jesus will transform lives. And when he transforms lives he transforms communities. And when he transforms communities he will transform nations. And when he transforms nations he will transform the world.

He ran out of time, but said he would post the rest of his notes at his blog:  www.glocal.net:

The best way to learn how to plant a church is to look at what is happening around the world.

Most important questions:

What is the church? What is called God me to plant?
We argue over forms and philosophies why the world is going to Hell?

If he was going to plant a church he would:
-Get 10-20 people to praying for him.
-Read the book of Acts, Matthew, Luke
-Go off and spend some solitude time with God and ask God, “What do you want me to do?”

1. It’s the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
–Does it bother you we can grow a mega church and our communities are not any different?
–Kingdom – Disiciple – Church – Community

2. It encompasses the reconcilliation of all things.
–the grid is the society

3. The focus is on the disciple, not the preacher.
–Every believer is a church planter

4. All religions are all places which makes for a naked public square and thoughtful communication.
–If Paul would have treated Jewish leaders like most American Christians treat Muslim leaders, the Gospel would have never spread.

5. Knowing other religions isn’t just for the experts but for everyone who would communicate who Jesus is.

6. Risk is seen in life and death not nickels and noses.

7. Never vilify another religion.
–Paul didn’t do this.

What I believe about church determines how I do church.

Do not be conformed to the pattern of the American church.

1. A movement will never be safe, predictable and clean.
–the church must become dangerous again.
–We are unintentionally inviting people to a better life. When you read the NT you see this die to your self, hardcore faith.
–Preach a dangerous message, the full Gospel. Not necessarily edgy, but challenging. Preach Christ crucified.
–We must invite people to experience the power of Christ.
–It must never be about the package. It’s about HIS presence.
–Just because you believe in Jesus does not mean you are following Jesus.
–Let the church become dangerous again.

2. A movement will never be about your ministry but about His kingdom.
–build your church on what it’s about, not what it’s not about.
–build it on what you are, not what you are not.

3. You will not lead a movement on the old measurements of success.
–The scorecard has changed.
–Old – attendance, offering, baptisms, small groups – these are still important but…your identity can’t be wrapped up in the numbers
–Don’t blame yourself for the declines because you will be tempted to take credit for the increases.
–You will be tempted to preach messages to bring people in. You will be tempted to beg them to stay instead of blessing them by giving them permission to leave.
–“When you think of 4 billion people who need Christ, we can’t say we are ‘big’.”
–If you think you are big you will start moving slowly.
–People don’t want to know how many people you are going to bring in. They want to know how many people you are going to send out.
–3 levels of buying into the Gospel:
—believe enough in it to benefit from it – line #1
—believe enough to contribute comfortably – line #2
—believe enough to give my life to it – line #3

–as God gives you success you are tempted to fade back

This breakout was primarily about what it means to be “missional.”  Here’s my rough notes:In defining missional we are tempted to apply it to everything we do.

Truth is sustained in the clarity of words.
The word missional and everything it represents carries the full weight of the future of the church.
More of the same will not get significantly better results.
The problems of the world cannot be solved by the same type of thinking that created those problems.

It is not:
-emerging – largely a renewal movement
-simply being evangelistic; just because it’s outreach doesn’t mean it’s missional; typically done by telling people they have to come to our “culture”; to be missional is to be a sent people
—you should be attractive, but what happens is “extractional”; people are extracted from their culture
-social justice – part of it, but not exclusively; an expression of it;
-simply church planting – a tool that missionaries use

All mission in the West should be cross-cultural.

Every church planter needs to think like a missionary.
-missionary stance in relation to culture
-missionary distance – attractional works when people are only slightly removed; but in a far removed culture whre missionaries deal attractional is actually extractional;

It’s not so much that the church has a mission as much as the mission has a church. God is a mission in the world and we can join him in that mission.

You do not bring God into a place. He is already there.
The job is to disern the hand of God in people you would normally write off.

Mission is the outward thrust, not collection but a driving out.
Incarnation is the way the sent God comes to us.
-God is in the neighborhood for 30 years and no one notices. That says a lot about his patience, respect for culture, and how we should engage the world. Subversive.
-Mission best expresses itself incarnationally.

What are the marks of the church?
-People
-Jesus
-Covenant community
-Transformation/discipleship
-Mission
-Worship

Most churches center themselves around worship.
When we say missional church, we mean that mission is the organizing principle.

My rough notes from the 1st session of Exponential:

When talking about movements we have to ask ourselves, what exactly we are trying to move.

To plant a church you have to consider what space you inhabit.

Acts 17:16f –
Paul takes us through 3 spaces:
1. Paul goes to the synagogue which seems odd.
–It was a familiar place
–We end up creating better spaces for Christians.
–the reason we only reach people just like us is that we really just like people like us.
–we need a movement that is not self directed
–Love covers a multitude of irrelevance.
–The current expression of church is that we create spaces and invite people in.
–They do “10 minute” parties where they invite nonxians to
–“If I can’t answer you questions well enough it’s not because there’s not a god, it’s because I’m stupid.”
–“Jesus is the best in the world at creating community where you can bring your atheistic friends.”

2. Marketplace – where we live
–saying “I’m a pastor is like saying “i’m a cannibal, do you want to have lunch?”
–you have to find a different nuance of language
–you can’t say people aren’t open in the marketplace. They just don’t know who to have a conversation with and trust.
–People are looking for people with “presence.”
–If we don’t learn how to reach the real world we won’t make a real difference.

3. v. 19 – a place you cannot go unless you are invited – Areopagus
–a place you have to earn the right to be invited into
–living in such a way that people ask what makes our lives so different.
–We stop trying to be popular in the world and we go after the Dionysus (those who don’t fit, those on the fringe)…who risk the disdain of the 1st place to reach the 3rd place.

So I had dinner tonight with Ed Stetzer and Alan Hirsch…along with about 50 of my closest friends.  Actually Mary Beth, Tim, Kevin and Andy are here in beautiful Orlando for the Exponential Conference.  We had an opportunity to attend a dinner put on by the Upstream Collective and hear from two great thinkers and practitioners in the church planting world.  Here’s a few highlights from Ed and Alan:

Ed Stetzer:

• A lot of people fall in love withtheir model before they fall in love with their mission.

• The how of ministry is determined by the who, what and when.

• Does our model create spectators?

• Watching a great communicator is good, but we need to reproduce the great communicators as well.

• The term “missional” has become a theological junk drawer. We see in the word what we don’t like about the current church.
• Missional in our context, mission minded in the global context

• Every culture has things we can:

-adopt
-adapt
-reject

Alan Hirsch

• Plant in the hard places.
• Live missionally and let the church come from that.
• You have to unlearn and then relearn before you can plan.

• Question about what he specifically would do if he moved into a new neighborhood:

-Find where the social hotspots are and hang out.
-Make friends outside the church.
-Get the church out of the comfortable zone and into public places.

• 3 keys in living missionally:

-Proximity
-Frequency
-Spontaneity – to invite them to your home

• You become a chaplain to the system if you can’t challenge it.

Great stuff and this was just a little precursor.

Confessions of a Campus Pastor series

This post might hurt.

I read this from Wayne Cordeiro and instantly related:

“For over thirty years my drive for excellence propelled me. It wasn’t that I was compulsive; I simply had a deep desire to do my best. I drove hard on all cylinders, not realizing that being an entrepreneur means that everything you initiate, by default you must add to your maintenance list…

…Slowly, the unwelcome symptoms began to surface. Ministry because more arduous. My daily tasks seemed unending, and e-mails began to stack up. People I deeply cared about became problems to be avoided, and deliberating about new vision no longer stirred my soul.

Although I never doubted my calling and gifting, what began as a joy that filled me now became a load that drained me. But I didn’t know where I could trim. People were coming to Christ and lives were being changed. How could all this be wrong?

Decisions — even small ones — seemed to paralyze me. Gradually my creativity began to flag and I found it easier to imitate rather than innovate. I was backing away from the very things that used to challenge and invigorate me.”

There have been seasons of ministry that have been tough, really tough.  There are projects and initiatives I have undertaken that completely drained me and pushed me close to burn out.

I take full responsibility for the effect those times had on me and my family but I recognize now that I did not guard my own time well because I was looking for someone else to say, “Why don’t you take a break.”  But that never really came.  And I understand why now.  For a long time I thought that if I just served with all my heart no matter what the cost to my family or me personally, someone would recognize that and reward me.  It has occurred to me that I was looking to the wrong people for affirmation and recognition.

This is not just a ministry issue.  I was talking to a friend in a completely different line of work and he said he has wrestled with this same thing.  He thought if he gave his all to his work, not worrying about tracking lost vacation days, sacrificing time with family that his employer would recognize that and reward him.  But it never came.

That’s because only ONE person will care about YOU and YOUR family more than YOU and it’s not your boss…it’s God.

Only my Father in Heaven cares about my family more than I do.  Only my Father in Heaven cares about my personal state even more than I do.  And He has given me responsibility to guard my time and give my best to my family AND only look to HIM for that affirmation.

If you are in ministry and looking for a good resource on burn out, I’d suggest Anne Jackson‘s Mad Church Disease.  Just loaned my copy to a friend last night who has experienced some of this.

If you are not in ministry, can I suggest you love your pastor(s) and treat them well.  Yes, there are many stories of nutjobs who screw up their lives and church’s, but there are many, many men and women in the trenches of church ministry serving their heart out for the kingdom.

I recently read The Monkey and the Fish by Dave Gibbons. In it he talked about 3 questions that have been a filter for deciding direction for him personally and for the church he leads. They are:

1.  Who is my neighbor?

2. What’s my pain?

3. What is in my hand?

Who is my neighbor? is a question related to Luke 10:25-37.  Through this parable Jesus teaches that our “neighbor” are those who are around us but very different than us.

What’s my pain? is a question about personal brokenness and passion.  What are you most passionate about?  What pain in your past has been a catalyst for passion?

What is in my hand? is a question about the gifts, skill and interests God has given you.  It’s about using what God has given you to work towards His mission.

These may be 3 of the most powerful questions I’ve ever considered.

What do you think?

I have the honor of teaching at our Good Friday services which we call our “Passion Experience.”  We call it an experience because it is not about sitting and listening as much as participating in an experience.

One of the things I wrestle with is how to make this fresh.  I have taught at these particular services at Suncrest for 4 years now and in various other forms taught on the cross.  The reason this is so crucial to me is because of this little fact I’ve learned:

Familiarity breeds complacency.

When I was in Israel I saw this so clearly.  People lived literally next door to Biblical places and their proximity produced apathy.

I think this is exactly what happens with the cross.  We become numb to the cross.

We wear it as jewelry.

People have manipulated it in a clothing line called Affliction Gear.

We see them everywhere and never take a second glance.

We have grown complacent to the cross.  As I study the cross I realize that it is so easy to ignore the reality of the brutality of the cross…it is so easy to overlook what Jesus went through for you and me.  That is why I love the setting we are creating for our Passion Experiences.  If only for a couple nights we come face to face with Jesus on the Cross and when we do, we won’t walk away unchanged.