Discipleship Archives - Page 102 of 167

Yesterday I hinted that I have seen signs of the megachurch model (let’s call it “attractional” for this post, because lots of churches use the model, but are not yet mega) being able to adopt some of the simple, organic, humble, service-oriented values that are often found in the house-church model. Let’s call these values “missional” even though not all house churches are missional.

David Fitch wrote a post today about how this could look. He says:

[The] attractional gathering is for celebration, inspiration, the creating of vision, and spurring on of momentum. Missional communities (groups of 20-50) on the other hand do community, local missional engagement, training and discipling well.

He goes on to say that

The attractional gathering is limited…to at most once every 4 weeks or once every six weeks. IT IS NOT THE CENTRAL ORGANIZING EVENT OF THE CHURCH. Indeed, the organic missional community in the local context is the local organizing force. The attractional event fulfills a unique role of celebration, inspiration, the creating of vision and spurring on that comes from the momentum. It plays its role and it is clearly subordinated to the missional community in the life of the church.

This is what I’m dreaming about! I could get involved in a “megachurch” like this where the missional communities are the core, and the attractional gathering is the optional meeting.

Alan Knox wrote something similar about two months ago in a post called “Why I’m Not a House Church Proponent.”

My hope is that each church will consider their current method of meeting together and attempt to change that method however necessary to help one another begin to encourage, teach, admonish, serve, and build up others. If this happens among a group meeting in a house, then great! If it happens among a group meeting in a school, awesome! If it happens in a church meeting in a big building with a steeple, fantastic!

So, no, I am not a house church proponent. However, I am a church proponent: I plead for the cause of allowing Jesus Christ to build up his church through all of those meeting together, not just through a few. I am a church enthusiast: I am an ardent supporter of the church gathering together for the purpose of the whole church helping one another grow in maturity in Jesus Christ.

That’s right. It doesn’t matter if you are a church of 10 or 10,000. The point is to meet together to encourage, teach, admonish, and serve, whatever the model. Currently, it seems to me that the house church model has the fewest barriers to this, but I see encouraging signs of attractional churches making genuine steps toward a more missional mindset.

Are you aware of any “missional-attractional” churches in your area that see the large-group gathering as “optional” and the missional community involvement as the focus and core of the church? I want to hear more!

The Humanizing Church

By Jeremy Myers

2 Comments

I am a guest blogger today over at “The Ooze.” Do me a favor and go check it out. Use the Facebook plugin to comment.

I’ll see you there!

Upgrade Your Church

By Jeremy Myers

8 Comments

If you tried to get on my blog within the last 36 hours, or on the forum over at GraceCommentary.com, you might have noticed a lot of errors and slow load times. Why did this happen? I tried to upgrade my sites. I added some elements that I hoped would make them run faster and smoother. Instead, the sites pretty much shut down.

So, I reverted them back to the way they were. The site still loads slow… but at least it works.

All of this got me thinking about church. When the church began 2000 year ago, things were good. Disciples were made. People believed in Jesus. The gospel spread. But over time, several things happened in culture: other religions developed innovations, scientific discoveries were made, governments changed hands, and wars were fought. The Christian leaders at the time thought that to keep up with the changes they were observing in culture, they also should innovate and change.

20/20 Hindsight
Looking back now, we see all the thousands of little innovations and tweaks that got us to where we are now. The pews, the buildings, the clergy, the politics, the money, the power, the liturgy, the bells and smells, the holidays, the dress code, the rules, and everything else that we think of as “church” was at one point, someone’s minor little innovation to help them make disciples.

But, just like with my website, some of these innovations, though good and helpful and added with the best of intentions, have become unnecessary coding on the life of the church. Rather than speed things up, they slow the church down. We get bogged down in ritual, rules, regulations, none of which are biblical, but which many believe are necessary to “run the church.”

Church Plugins
As a result of all these unnecessary plugins, we have come to the place today where people get tired of waiting for the church to load, and just move on to something else. They’d like to get involved or comment, but even once the page loads, it takes too long to register, and read all the comment policies, and sign up for the openID, and then, once they finally got to write a comment, they had to squint their eyes and try to decipher some funny-shaped letters which were meant to keep out computer spammers (digital heretics), but all these letters do is frustrate those who are trying to join the conversation. Even then, after they decipher the funny code to prove they are human (true believers), they are told their comment is being held for moderation (the pastor has to approve it).

So, they utter a curse word, make a mental note to not ever read your blog again, or attend your church again, and head over to Facebook or read their favorite blog about beer.

This is one of the reasons people are abandoning the church in droves. It is not that they are unspiritual or don’t care about God, the Bible, and Jesus. They do. It is just that we have made it too difficult for them to get involved and be heard.

Two Responses
Many churches are not even aware that this is going on. They notice attendance is falling, but think it is just because the big church down the street stole all their people, or the community is dying, or people are too busy, or whatever. But some churches are realizing that things need to change. And of those who do, there are generally two approaches to change.

1. Make Church Cooler
First, some churches try to innovate more. They get nicer buildings to compete with the work-out clubs, dance parties, and beer fests that the community seems to love. They add strobe lights and fog machines and state-of-the-art sound equipment to compete with the concerts. They get funny and obnoxious speakers to compete with the political comedians and comedian politicians. In essence, these churches believe they just need to add more plugins and get a cooler layout, and their readers will return.

And let’s be honest. For some of them, it works. They become huge. They get book deals, magazine covers, and radio spots. All the churches in the country try to follow suit.

But the nagging question still remains…are they actually making disciples and advancing the kingdom in a better way…. or are they just bigger, richer, and more popular? The answer is that we don’t know yet. Time and history will tell.

2. Revert Church Back
There is another approach, however. One that is gaining strength and popularity. This is the house church movement. Those in this camp see all the innovations and plugins that have been added over the past 2000 years, and see the the load on the server that these cause, and so decide to get back to the basics, strip it all away, and start over. No technology (or very little, anyway), no clergy, no budgets, no buildings, no sound systems, no lights and fog machines. Just people getting together to live life and follow Jesus.

I am not opposed to this approach. In fact, I am currently part of it. But I get real uncomfortable with the reasoning and logic behind much of the house church movement. It seems that many house churches, having rejected the historical innovations of the church, simply reverted back to the way things were at the beginning. Just people, meeting in their homes, sharing food and fellowship, discussing Scripture, and praying for one another. The logic seems to be that if it was good enough for the church in the beginning, it should be good enough for today.

I couldn’t disagree more. I agree this is how it was in the beginning. There’s no denying it. But here’s the problem: although the Bible reports how the early church functioned, the Bible does not require us to do it the same way. The early church did what they did for hundreds of reasons, but one of them was not “This is the one right way to do things forever and ever.”

My Church Position
So why am I (somewhat) part of the house church movement? Not because Frank Viola wrote a book about the pagan roots our church practices. Frankly (pun intended), I love some of those pagan practices and see much spiritual value in them. Nor am I part of the house church movement because I dislike sermons, songs, and stained glass. To the contrary, I absolutely love all three. I desperately miss good expository preaching. And I’m not part of the house church movement because I read about house churches in the Book of Acts. I do read about it there, but so what?

I am part of the house church movement for one main reason. I believe it offers the best and most streamlined way of reaching our culture for Jesus and helping people follow Him. Let me be even more honest. Five years from now, I might realize that there are ways to plug my convictions about disciple making and following Jesus into the mega-church model, and that it offers the best way of reaching our culture and helping people follow Jesus. I actually see signs around the country of this happening already, and am optimistic that some mega churches will be able to make the transition. If so, maybe I’ll join one.

What is the best way to make disciples?
Bottom line, there is the one factor I primarily consider when looking at a church model. I ask, “Is this the best way to draw people to Jesus and make them fully-devoted followers of Him in this culture?” In Greco-Roman culture of the first few centuries, I look at house churches and say, “Yes. That was the best.” After the conversion of Constantine in 312 AD, I look at the inclusion of church buildings, liturgy, and clergy, and say, “Yes, that was the best.” And elements of that model truly were best for about the next 1700 years. Through the Middle ages, and through the Enlightenment, and the Modern era, that model worked quite well at making disciples.

But about fifty years ago, the world-wide culture began to radically change. Like it or not, the church must recognize the reality of our postmodern culture and how that impacts our mission in the world. This post is already too long, but by my analysis, the best church model in a postmodern culture is one that focuses on a few things: simplicity over complexity, service over power, humility over arrogance, generosity over greed, inclusion over exclusion, and loving relationships over faceless masses.

I think the house church model presently does the best to fit the cultural challenges. And not surprisingly, there are lots of similarities between our culture and the Greco-Roman culture of the first three centuries, so it makes sense that the house church model, which was so effective then, is also effective now.

Don’t Revert. Upgrade!
Transitioning to a house church model is not a “revert” back to the way it was in the book of Acts. It is actually an upgrade from the institutional model to a more streamlined, service-oriented, all-inclusive, everybody-has-a-say operating system with fewer scripts, plugins, coding errors, and restrictions. And definitely no “Are you human?” codes to decipher.

So, have you upgraded your church recently? If so, how is it functioning?

Gauging Church Efficiency

By Jeremy Myers

8 Comments

In an era where people are cutting budgets and becoming energy efficient, the church must do the same. I’m not talking about the electric bill and “going green.” One area of waste, fraud, and abuse within the church is the money and time that people give to church programs. Are we truly getting a significant return on our vast expenditures in these areas?

Studies show that on average, a church has three conversions per year for every 100 people who attend. These are actual conversions, not just people transferring from one church to another. Based on this statistic, let’s look at how much money and time churches spend on average to gain these three conversions.

Money
It is estimated that the cost of running a church is about $1700 each year for each regular attendee. This number is within ballpark range for small churches and mega churches. A church of 50, with a building and one pastor, costs about $85,000 per year to operate. A mega-church, like Rick Warren’s Saddleback Community Church, costs $34 million for 20,000 in weekend attendance. Do the math to see if these numbers hold basically true for your church. You will probably be “within the ballpark.”

So if the average church gets three conversions for every 100 people, and the average church expense for 100 people is about $170,000, then the average expense per conversion is over $50,000.

Yes, yes, I know. A lot more is going on in church than just evangelism, and a lot of the money is spent on discipling those who believe. But still, one of the goals of discipleship should be evangelism. If people are being adequately trained, then the money spent on their training should result in a greater number of conversions. But it is not.

So the question becomes: Would you support a non-profit organization which had the stated goal of “evangelizing the lost” but spent over $50,000 for each convert? I don’t know about you, but I would have difficulty supporting such a ministry, especially if they had been doing this for 2000 years and their effectiveness became worse and worse over time.

Speaking of time, let’s look at an asset of the church even more valuable than money.

Time
Aside from the money spent on church, consider the cost in time. Though many spend only an hour or so in church activates per week, others spend much more. Some, such as the staff, devote 60 hours or more each week on church activities. Of course, this is their job. On average, a church member spends about three hours per week on church activities. This does not count the time they spend getting ready for church, driving to church, and going out for lunch after church. Nor does it include personal Bible study or prayer time during the week. This is time they actually spend in the church building or in a designated church program.

Three hours per week isn’t a whole lot when you realize that the average person watches that much television every single night of the week. But still, it appears that even these few hours spent on “church” accomplishes very little.

Three hours per person per week results in about 150 hours per year. So 100 people spend about 15,000 hours per year on “church activities.” Taking the average conversion rate of three conversions per 100 people, about 5000 hours go into each conversion. When you realize that a full-time job (40-hours per week) fills 2000 hours per year, each conversion takes two-and-a-half years of work-hours.

So again I ask, if you were supporting a missionary who had one conversion every two-and-a-half years, would you continue to support that missionary?

Yes, again, I know that some missionaries labor for 40 years without seeing a single missionary. But these stories are often followed up with the fact that when a new missionary arrived on the scene, they see hundreds or thousands of conversions in the first few years of work, not because they figured something out that their predecessor did not, but because the faithful missionary of 40 years had prepared the soil, planted the seed, and watered the ground. The new missionaries on the scene just happen to be there for the harvest. So statistically, we do expect the average conversion rate for missionaries to be much less than one conversion every two-and-a-half years.

Is this a good use of time and money?
Is all of this time and money really a good investment? Possibly. No price is too high for the single soul, and a lot more goes on in the typical church than just seeking conversions. For that $1700 and 150 hours per person, the people who attend also get friends, fellowship, encouragement, support, guidance, and spiritual education. So maybe it is all worth it.

But what if there were a more efficient way of providing all of this, while at the same time, seeing more people become followers of Jesus? In the coming weeks, I will propose a few.

Jesus says We’re all Doomed

By Jeremy Myers

3 Comments

In my Scripture reading group yesterday, we discussed Matthew 5:17-20 which concludes with Jesus saying that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. As always with this group, I tried to say as little as possible.

After reading the four verses through, we went back and started reading and discussing the verses one at a time. The first three verses generated lots of discussion about the Jewish law and the results of keeping or breaking it. But the final verse threw the group into an animated discussion.

Eventually, one of the guys said, “If I understand Jesus right, we’re all doomed.” There was further debate about this, but eventually, the group consensus was that Jesus was not painting a rosy picture. If Jesus was right, and if we understand what he is saying, everybody is doomed.

One person asked how I understand these words of Jesus. After affirming their conclusion, I told them that others had also struggled with the truth that nobody can keep the entire law, and so either we are all doomed, or God must have made another way. I then took them over to Romans 3 where Paul talks about this. It was exciting to see the group grasp the idea that they were faced with two options: either try to keep the whole law (which was impossible) or accept justification by faith in Jesus.

We then went back to Matthew 5 and I introduced the idea that most likely, Jesus wasn’t talking about eternal life anyway. The “kingdom of heaven” is not the same thing as getting eternal life, being justified, or going to heaven when you die. Instead, it probably refers to the rule or reign of heaven on earth, here and now, in the life, and in the new heavens and new earth when they come. So the kingdom of heaven is not some pie-in-the-sky, go-to-heaven-when-you-die dream of an afterlife. The kingdom of heaven can be a living reality now for people who live according to the way that Jesus outlines in his sermon. The early church seemed to have understood it this way, as in Acts 1-4, where we see them live according to many of these kingdom principles. This idea really got the group excited, and we spent the next half hour or so dreaming and discussing what this might look like in our own lives and communities.

The discussion reiterated to me once again that Jesus, as difficult as it sometimes is to understand Him, still inspires the thoughts and imaginations of all people who take him seriously.

The Missional Attractional Church

The Humanizing Church

Upgrade Your Church

Gauging Church Efficiency

Jesus says We’re all Doomed

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