Why Wouldn't You?

This post will seem a little self-serving, but it needs to be said, regardless of my role in the related subject.

Politics, have you ever seen a politician turn down more endorsements? Bad example, I know it happens sometimes. Have you ever seen a charitable organization turn down more money? Have you ever known of a team that turns away more fans? How about a battalion of soldiers trying to take a town or a hill, ever heard of them turning down reinforcements? Of course not. Why not? These are all achievements that cannot be done alone; or at the very least, could be accomplished better with more help. So, welcome the endorsements, receive the unanticipated funds, give the fans a t-shirt and a big foam #1 hand thingy, and let the reinforcements roll in!

Now, why is it that in the white fields of the harvest of the Master, new churches are looked upon by many (not all) as danger and a threat, rather than reinforcements? If churches are laboring together to take a city and make as many disciples as possible, why not rejoice in more help? New churches in unreached areas are great! New churches in the Pacific Northwest, New England, or Canada are great too! New churches in major metropolitan areas, especially LA, NY, Chicago, Miami, and Atlanta are great too! New churches in rural towns, not so much. NIMBY.

Yes, I am planting a new church in my rural town.Yes, it has a lot of other churches. Yes, it has lots of believers. Yes, it has more unbelievers. Yes, our church is aiming for unbelievers. The Road is going to bring God much glory, by bringing many people to God; that's the means to the end. The end: glorify God, the means: make disciples from people who are not Christians.

Why is competition a focus, instead of kingdom advance?

Leading To Die

Fifty-nine years ago Jim Elliot and his four missionary brethren were speared to death on the Curaray River in Ecuador. Great blog post was posted this morning about it. His courageous view on giving his very blood for the kingdom of Christ through the evangelism of a vicious people group was demonstrated there. He wrote about his willingness, and he courageously received it. Great example for us. And to follow his example was that of his wife courageously going back and reaching the same people that killed her husband. Life springs forth from death. Eternal life springs forth from temporary death.

Last week I saw a great example of a church that exhibited the same willingness to give its life and die for the future life of others. This church was in an area of our town that had transitioned from a middle class, Caucasian neighborhood to a predominately impoverished African American and Hispanic area. Rather that taking a typical "white flight" and moving to the suburbs, they truly desired to reach their neighborhood, and continued to evangelize and attempt to make disciples, but with little success. So after much loss and much prayer, they decided to die. They weren't giving up, quitting, or being forced out; they were choosing to relinquish their resources in view of a higher calling, greater purpose, and the leading of God.

They decided that God was leading them to disperse as their current gathering, and put all their assets and resources toward a new congregation that will be able to reach the neighborhood. With great foresight and kingdom commitment, they decided to pass the baton to another group that could continue baptizing and discipling in that location. They wanted to give a jumpstart to a group that could advance against the gates of hell and the darkness in that community.

So I sat in the service last week, and mourned with them as they thought about the last forty-two years, and how there would be no worship gathering that night. I rejoiced with them for the 135 people that had been baptized there in that amount of time, and the $250,000 given through their small congregation. I saw the tears in their eyes, and I saw the courage as well, as they wanted "thy will be done," and "make disciples of all peoples," to come to pass in their community. I saw a pastor courageously stepping out into unknown territory, and by the will and Spirit of God, leading his flock to die for a greater flock that would come and graze in that pasture. They were looking forward to a church more like the community, that could reach the community.

I was proud of them, and I trust that they will be proud when the new congregation is up and winning people to Christ.

Small-Mindedness

"For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice..." -Zechariah 4:10

In the last couple of weeks I have been reminded of how small I think. When I think of success, I think about winning. When I think about church growth, I think about adding people and baptisms. When I think about ministry, I think about maintaining what we've got, and maybe adding a couple of more good ideas sprinkled in the mix. When I think about missions, I think about one place or a few mission trips to an area.  When I think about devotional life, I think about sitting down and once a day and having a few moments of prayer, and checking off my bible reading for the day. When I think about discipling my family, I think about reading the bible and having a 5-10 minute discussion with my girls at night before they go to sleep and praying over meals.

So minimal. So small. I used to pray that God would not let me be sucked into complacency and a maintenance mindset. God has not failed, but I am sure that I have failed Him. So three times now challenged, and I want to summarize those challenges to you, so that your vision may increase in size and depth and length (and so I can write it down, lest I forget myself).

1) This first time was in a meeting with the president, CEO, and founder of a global milti-million dollar business that I was meeting with that day. He has invented a process of production of agricultural products never known before. And now that he has the warehouse, he is expanding the products that they make, and moving into completely new inventions and innovations on existing products totally unrelated to the current line. He is investing in our Pregnancy Care Center in a spectacular way by giving us 20% of any online order that is made; right out of his pocket, off the top, not added to the price! So I was there to update him on how the project is going. He wanted things to be marked with excellence, and some of the things we were doing to make the video part of this deal work (which by the way, he is paying for the production of), he wanted to be redone because it wasn't just right. Then he began to talk about his passion for ending abortion and saving the lives of unborn children with great zeal. He said that if he had to build a store in every shopping center in every town across the nation, he would do that. What ever it takes. I was just thinking about funding our center, he was thinking about funding all the centers in the US, and beginning PCCs all over the world. If it worked with us, he said, we can duplicate it all around the country and the world. I was embarrassed that my thinking was so small, and challenged to think bigger.

2) Second time was with a spiritual mentor of mine who had been on a recent trip to central America. He was a part of a team that helped work at an independent (not affiliated with a denomination) mission ministry. This ministry had a hospital and a school, so the team went for a week and helped out. Both ministries (hospital and school) were non-profit, pay if you can, but nobody turned away. While there, the head of the ministry told them that his goal was to be fully self-sustaining in five years. This was a ministry that had been established twenty years ago. But it had recently acquired some property, and was in the process of gaining income from agriculture and cutting expenses, to be self-sufficient. For example, he said that he currently pays $5000/mo ($60,000/year) in electricity costs. But for $120,000, he could install solar panels and eliminate that expense from there on out. Non-profit ministries usually totally rely on individual donors and churches for donations. But he says we don't always want to rely on "hand outs." Novel thought, not continually, eternally dependent on donations. Again, I am an advancement manager for a non-profit, and have never thought of being self-sustaining.

3) Third time was at a training for directors of missions of association of local baptist churches. One of the speakers gave a bunch of statistics about all the unchurched in our towns and projection to future stats. Blah, blah, blah, they always do that; and they are always depressing. But then he talked about evaluating our town and aiming to reach entire segments, or having large goals that wouldn't have been considered attainable. Specifically, he talked about prayer networking to undergird these goals. He talked about cross-denominational partnerships and prayer meetings (shhh, don't tell other baptists), and he talked about experiencing results to the level of history books that write about us as having the Third Great Awakening coming in our day. Taking our whole city! Involving all the churches.  My goal would be to have been that my churches growing (which is actually not a good indicator of church vitality) and not dying. Guess I never have dreamed to reach the city. I have thought of getting all my churches together; most recently of getting at lest 2/3 of our pastors to the retreat this weekend, rather than the normal 1/3 or less.  But gathering the whole city of churches for prayer and ministry! Again, embarrassed for having such small-minded thoughts.

As I went to the conference again yesterday, I was praying and thinking, WHY? Why do we get caught up in such small-mindedness? I believe that our thoughts about God are small--His incomprehensibility, infinitude, magnitude, power, His immeasurability, independence, holiness, and we could never stop. Tozer said it like this:  

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.” -The Knowledge of the Holy 

I also believe the culture, both within and without the church has dulled our capacity to dream about the kingdom's victories and expanse. We are focused on earthly, temporary things that are small in God's sight. Television, the Super Bowl, fashion, cooking, cars, guns, even the upcoming Olympics consume and cloud our spiritual acumen. Within the church preferences, buildings, budgets, fights, quarrels, broken relationships, comfort, apathy, routine, and maintenance ruin our ability to dream big, all-encompassing dreams. 

God, help us to despise the days of small things, throw off the cultural influences and our capitulation to them, and fix our gaze on You, thinking thoughts that are worthy of you. Give us disciples that would explode the norm for Christianity in the south, in America, and in the world with giant impact for the kingdom because of giant dreams!

Indeed He says,

‘It is too small a thing that You should be My Servant

To raise up the tribes of Jacob,

And to restore the preserved ones of Israel;

I will also give You as a light to the Gentiles,

That You should be My salvation to the ends of the earth.’ ”  -Isaiah 49:6

Sharing Life III

In our time together we quickly discovered two things. First, an hour wasn't enough time. And that what we were doing was well worth it. We saw that the triad atmosphere is different than a small group study, Sunday School, and definitely preaching. We noticed how open we became with each other over the first six weeks or so. We noticed how we all looked forward to the time together. And often if one had to miss, the other two met, even though they didn't do the material for the week.

We would suggest that you commit at least an hour and a half. Trust me, you will want to. On the other hand, you don't have to finish each lesson in the allotted time. Both groups regularly took two weeks to do a lesson because the discussion was so good. We all got to ask all the questions that we wanted to ask, and wrestle with them together. Remember, not content based, but relationship based. There are 25 lessons in the manual, and 52 weeks in a year, you got time.

One criticism that we had was that the first page in each lesson was not very helpful. We ended up skipping it in both groups most of the time. It did give the scripture memory and study passage for the week, but that was about the extent of its usefulness.

Three things that we would add. We would add a component of daily intercession on behalf of your other triad members. This is something that we found ourselves doing anyway often, but we felt like it would be good to be more intentional about it. Secondly we would add a fellowship component outside of the weekly meeting. It would be neat for families to get involved in the deepening rerelationships that are forming. It would also give us a chance to model biblical fellowship to others. Thirdly, we would do a couple of lessons on very practical issues. The study is very general in some aspects. And for men's triads, I would add lessons on being a good husband, sexual purity, and family worship. These are just some of the areas that could have been dealt with more thoroughly if the study was gender or age specific. But again, the study is broad enough where you can work all these things in when you want to.

I am firmly convinced that if we truly want to make disciples in our churches, that we must do some things different. And one thing that we must do is get back to one on one/two discipling over the long term, pouring our lives into one another. Without the use of this tool, I forsee more great difficulty and failure in our goal to make disciples (not that this tool guarantees success, just that it is necessary). For in the end our first two triads I am fully anticipating the results that we are now standing firmer in Christ and closer to our brethren, as well and poised and inspired to continue the process of making more disciples, and advancing the kingdom!

Sharing Life I

One of the things that has impacted my walk with Christ in the past year is sharing life together with two other men in a discipleship triad. And I have constantly referred to it on Facebook, in sermons, and in conversations with other believers and pastors, and one of them suggested that I blog about it and share what God is doing. Probably have to break it up into a couple of posts, so as not to be too lengthy. So here goes...

I have forgotten who turned my attention to the manual Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden. Or maybe I was perusing the latest advertisement magazine from Christian Book Distributors. But I have been for a long time reading about (and experiencing in churches) lots of discipleship programs, classes, studies, etc, and little results. Leonard Ravenhill thought that the 50's were a time of shallow faith, but certainly we have surpassed his era. And our commission is to make disciples. So in searching for a fresh way to make disciples, I came across this book. It was obviously a manual, and I wanted to read the method to the madness, so I ordered his other book, Transforming Discipleship.


This book detailed his journey as a pastor of education at several churches to find something that helps truly accomplish the task of making disciples. He told of the myriad of programs, and detailed the church's failure as a whole to produce mature believers, sound in their theology and serious in their biblical worldview. I was hooked! So he went on to describe his discovery, or rediscovery, of the method of disciple-making used by Jesus and Paul--one believer pouring out his life into other believers one at a time over a long period (not just six weeks), and covering the breadth of theology AND practical life issues, and providing depth of life relationally, accountability, encouragement, and challenge. It sounded too good to be true (not that it would be easy or quick), but it just made sense. So, I figured that I would try it and see. So, I started two groups; one last September, and one in January. The summary statement is that they are awesome! I am thrilled with the work that God is doing in all of our lives.

I will try to explain the how's and why's of their success, and how we went about doing this in the next post. But I know that I speak for the other men when I say that we are convinced of the power of the triad, and are going to continue using it to make disciples. You can find more info at Greg Ogden's website, and you can find his books at CBD and Amazon.com.

Recent Posts About Church Planting

In recent days, t here have been three really good posts on church planting in the blogosphere. And I just wanted to share them with you. You can find one from Kevin Colon (a CP friend of mine in CO) here. Al Mohler (the president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) here. And one from JD Greear (the pastor at The Summit Church in Durham, NC) here. All of these just simply confirm what is biblically evident--that we should be planting churches! All of us, all the time. Healthy churches (more on this later) should seek to multiply themselves! And you know I am a church planter at heart. And those of you who read this blog regularly have seen my post about what God is doing to plant a church here in Tifton. We had a missions committee meeting last night, and everyone is really excited. And I am confident that our church will be able to recognize the hand of God at work and desire to get involved with Him. Keep us in prayer as we seek to build the kingdom here in Tifton. Pray specifically for New River's pursuit of this opportunity; for our association's full support; for other church partners to financially support it; for Benji and Brittany (our planter and his wife); and for the selection of our core group! May God be glorified as He builds His church!