Katdish (Kathy Richards) asked a great question on a previous post of mine, and I realized my reply needed to be it’s own post. Here is what she asked:
We’re in the beginning stages of planting a church. I’ve been reading quite a few blogs about church planting. I like what I’ve been reading for the most part. My biggest challenge/question to date has been how do we convince the “regular” church people that they need to leave the building in order to follow Christ? I just think they’re missing out on what it means to really impact the world. The “build it and they will come” philosophy just isn’t working anymore — if it ever really did.
My basic answer is “If you can figure that out, you can write a book!” It is the number one question on the minds of most missional thinkers and leaders today. It is the “uncharted waters” of missional churches. Most “missional” churches are new church plants, and they launch with mostly new or non-believers. Very few people have been successful in taking an established church, and leading it to become missional.
One book that begins to deal with this issue is Breaking the Missional Code by Ed Stetzer and David Putnam. They suggest some ways that established churches can become missional.
Though I own the book (see my post from yesterday!), I haven’t read the book yet, but here are my suggestions:
1. Study Christ. In the teaching times of the church, emphasize the radical teaching and mission of Jesus.
2. Study Culture. Help your church understand the culture it is in. American (or Australian, German, whatever), plus the more local microculture within your city and neighborhood. Figure out what kind of people are there, what they value, how they think, and what they do for fun.
3. Creatively bring the two (Christ and Culture) together. As you study the teachings of Christ, and you see how He lived what He taught, come up with tangible ways you and your church can do similar things in your own cultural context. He fed 5000. How can you feed 50 homeless people in your community? He showed love to a woman caught in adultery. How can you show love to prostitutes, single mothers, and strippers? When you have an idea, go do it. Even if only a few show up to help, that is a start.
4. Celebrate and share the stories. In your services, share the stories of the people’s lives you touched. This will encourage more to get involved the next time.
If you really want to get radical, try something a little subversive. A while back there was a man moving into our neighborhood, and for various reason I knew he needed help moving into his house, and didn’t have anybody to help him. I also knew that if I called around, I might be able to get 2-3 guys to help, but that wouldn’t be enough. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and so I went over to the man and said, “At 7:00 tonight, about a dozen men from our church will show up to unload your moving van. It’ll take us about an hour.”
How could I promise this? Here’s the subversive part: On Wednesday nights, we have a men’s Bible study. Generally about a dozen men come. I knew that if I called and told each man that we were going to “go help someone unload a moving truck rather than study the Bible” few would come. So I didn’t tell them. When they showed up, I said, “Hey, instead of study the Bible, we’re going to go serve our neighbor instead. Let’s go!” And we helped the man unload his truck. It took about an hour. And everybody enjoyed it. Well, one or two grumbled, but it was still fun.
You could maybe do something similar on a Sunday morning, although you might want to tell people in advance. Say “Hey, we’ve been talking about how Jesus loves children. Next week, rather than meet here for Sunday service, let’s all meet down at the kiddie park. I’ve been noticing that the benches need painting and lots of trash needs to be picked up. We’re going to go clean up the park for the kids. It’s not going to take any extra time, because we’re going when you would have been in church anyway. Instead of being in church, we’re going to go be the church.”
That’s really funny, because I was just thinking of the same thing (sort of). We still have a big problem with houses in New Orleans that people have just abandoned. Grass is high, all manners of wildlife abound and they’re just a dirty, moldy, stinky mess. I want to grab a group of people (or maybe just go byself to areas that aren’t too dangerous) and start working. Cut the grass. Do some work inside. Whatever can be done. And see who joins me.
The difference is that I plan on doing it with a great big red A on my car, trailer shirt, something. (http://outcampaign.org/) If it ever comes to fruition, real life being what it is, I’d like to try and show that people with no faith can still have a normal positive impact on local society. And it’s the local part that’s important.
Missional atheist? 🙂
I find we usually agree on what’s important, even if we come from different directions to get there. I think that’s pretty cool.
Bullet,
I think that is a great idea for New Orleans! Though you should definitely go with some other people.
I was a bit confused by the red A idea (I was thinking “The Scarlet Letter”), until I went and checked out the site you refer to. Then it all made much more sense.
I actually am part of a “missional” group right now that includes atheists and a few agnostics. The atheists do consider themselves “missional.” They are on a mission to help people, and just so happen to have included some Christians who want to love and help people too.
It is the most fun-loving, joyful, friendly group of people I have ever been around. We have some lively discussions, but it’s all in love because what unites us is our service.
So anyway, I say “Go for it!” Let me know if/when you do it. I can’t promise anything, but maybe I can come down for a day/weekend and lend a hand.
Wow! I got my own post. Thanks for all the suggestions. I can really see us doing those type of things. But again, we’re planters, we think (hope) most of us have that mindset to begin with. I’ll definately check out Stetzer’s book as well. I’m reading “The Tangible Kingdom” right now, which addresses many of the issues I’m struggling with.
Thanks again for the post!