Passion and Integrity

This is the answer to the Final Jeopardy question, "What is necessary to have a meaningful worship service?" It applies to all parts of the service from the music to the welcome to the message. I am honestly convicted and ashamed of some of my previous preaching and worship leading efforts because I was missing one or both of these qualities. The question now becomes, "What do we mean by Passion and Integrity?"

Passion. This occurs when I communicate not just what you could know, but what you should know. In fact true passion is unleashed when I am convinced that in order to live in God's will this is something that you must know. This also applies to things that you should do or be. Regardless of the purpose of the message, the key is to relate it in such a way that the audience is convinced that I believe this is absolutely required for the Christian life. I am to the point now where I do not have time for "good sermons." I want to hear what is urgent, what is necessary, what is required for life and fulfillment. The passage and points may not change, but the delivery will.

Integrity. Lest you think I am just looking for a good showman who can drum up the necessary delivery to make an exciting sermon, let us now look at Integrity. Quite simply, integrity is displayed when you show me that you do believe as much as you are telling my I need to believe. Integrity occurs when God has already been teaching you what you are attempting to teach me. It is highlighted by personal testimony, not just catchy quotes and cute stories. Integrity brings the spirited power that will cause transformation to pass from you into me. Some speakers are gifted enough to fake passion, but you cannot fake integrity; at least not for long. God is never fooled, and no worship time will accomplish His full work while the messengers are lying. And, that is exactly what we do when we demand passion from others that we have not already lived out ourselves.

What will bring us together?

When I first started this series it may have looked like a "Church Health vs. Church Planting" series. As with many other areas I do not often like arguing either/or when it comes to such things. I am much more likely to argue both/and. As I spent time thinking about the issues I discovered that the heart of the matter lies more with church unity than anything else. This all stems from a deep conviction that God wants us to focus on cities more than campuses. When people say, "Our church is really seeing God move and growing", at some level that should include what God is doing in their city, not just their particular body. I first learned this from one of that pastors at a church that happens to be growing quickly. I asked him how he worked to stay humble and flexible before God in the face of such growth and success. He pointed me to the fact that even as fast as their church was growing they were not even keeping up with the people moving into their city, much less the people who already lived there.

The shift from Campus-Centered thinking to City-Centered thinking may be small as it affects the actions and planning of individual churches. But, it will be huge in how it affects our prayer and partnership.

The question then becomes, "How do we work towards a City-Centered view of church?" I am convinced that until we measure together we will not work together. It is said that you cannot manage what you do not measure, and if that is true then church unity will never be a practical reality until numerical unity is achieved.

"What does that look like?", you may ask. In its simplest form it would be a monthly report sent to each church in a city that lists every church's average worship attendance and total baptisms for the month. The report would provide a total attendance and baptisms for the city. Over time it would allow several unifying factors, such as:

1. Are we growing? When "we" is not just my campus but my city I am forced to look at the bigger picture. Things like "transfer growth" within a city are neatly done away with since it will have no impact on the bottom line. It would also allow a baseline to measure against things, like city population growth, to give a true measure for how the church is doing relative to larger demographic trends.
2. Recognize the sick as well as the healthy. It is not that hard to make a list of the "5 fastest growing churches" in a city. It is much harder to come up with a list of the "5 churches in most need of help before they slide into decline". If churches would agree to let their numbers be seen (a big if I know) instead of inputting them anonymously then you could measure strength and growth over time. This leads to a huge opportunity for ministry; the type of ministry God calls us to when he says that when one part of the body suffers, all suffer with it. We have attempted to bypass that reality by ignoring those churches that are dying in our city. It is too easy to ignore sick and dying churches right now. That is not a Biblical response. Sick churches should either be healed or removed... never ignored.
3. Hopefully City-Centered measurement will lead to City-Wide _________. The goal here is the God's Church in a city to get God's Heart for a city. Each church will operate in its own unique shape, but all for the same goal. Think of the possibilities if The Church in a city banded together and just adopted all of the orphans. Not a few churches offering courses on "how to adopt", but hundreds of churches just doing it in God's love.

God speaks to the church of the city in the New Testament. Some say that is because there was only one church in the city at the time. I believe it goes deeper then that; that cities have something like their own personality. God has a vision for our city, and for yours, and it goes far beyond any one church campus.

Partnership as a Tool for Transformation

One of the ways that God's transformation works is that He will plant a vision in a person. He then allows that vision to grow from that person into a system (say a local church or community). The vision creates change, or transformation, from within the system. So, what happens when God puts a vision into the heart of a person and their first option is to start a new work? It seems that the transforming power within the church is lost if the new vision always leads to new works. I heard it many times from church members who were considering looking for another church because, "I really have a heart for X, and I want to find a church that does too."

It is true that churches need to be focused on a unique vision in order to be most effective within their community. It is also true that God uses the passions of the people He has planted in churches to reveal that vision. I often told those same people, "This is the first I have heard about your passion. You know we are always looking for more ways to serve our community, let us join together in prayer to see how God may take your passion and connect it to our vision." If that did not work, I always had a list of vision-directed churches in the area that perhaps would provide a better fit.

This very principle is one of the things that I was pressed on with my recent call to work in church health. I felt God calling me to move out of the church we were at (and even the state we were in), but not because I believe partnering with a local church is against my vision. Quite the opposite I hope to build a network of churches that I can partner with in the Austin area that will embrace a vision of church health as a mission activity. My goal is not to start a new church that is focused on creating and spreading church health... though sometimes it seems that it might be an easier road. I think that is sometimes why people are drawn to beginning a new work; it is easier than transforming the existing work. It seems easier to find a church that already has the ministry you feel called to than to work with the leadership of a current body towards transformation. Most people find that "new" and "easy" don't often go together as well as they expected. But, even if new was easy, I am not sure easier would be better in this case.

If God has a new vision He is revealing, then He most likely wants to use it to transform His church, not just a part of a single body. That is really the heart of my issue. Regardless of how we express ourselves, God still expects us to operate as a unified body; and it just is not happening. I don't care if there are 15,000 churches in a local area, none of them larger than 10-20 people. They key is Unity and Partnership, and that is a Biblical mandate just as much as any other.

I don't think we take God seriously when He speaks of His church being united. We act like unity involves verbal assent such as, "God bless you guys, hope He uses you in your calling!" God refers to us as His body. If that does not refer to an entire city full of churches, then it certainly refers at least to a community. How are we supposed to be a functioning body if each individual piece is focused on its own vision and direction? Again, I am a big proponent of local church bodies finding and fulfilling their unique purpose, but not to the extent that they fail to communicate and coordinate with one another. Some things will be unique from church to church. But, things like serving the community, caring for orphans, and reaching the lost are not unique to any one Church; and neither are the strategies used to accomplish them. We must find a way towards true unity if we want to experience the full power of God's transformation.

Before you Plant

This was originally part of my previous post... but God edited it quite generously as He attempted to work grace and life into my words instead of, well instead of what was there before His edit :). I wanted to put this out though, because I believe it could be helpful to some who are considering the strategy behind church planting. As I have stated many times I believe one of the most crucial things in a successful plant is to get a certain DNA into the planting pastor. To that end, if a pastor feels called to work with a certain people group then I have two suggestions:

1. If your church is not passionate about church planting, then join one that is and spend a year there. Church planting DNA is unique. Healthy church planting DNA is extremely rare. If you can find a church with healthy church planting DNA it would be worth year to go and soak in as much as you can; even if they don't pay you. You are going to be raising support anyway, and they year you spend investing in yourself will pay decades of dividends down the road. (Look at Hill Country Bible Church if you need a good example.)
2. Find a church in the area you feel called to and join their staff for 6-12 months. Again, you are already looking to raise support, so they should welcome a free addition to their staff. Partner with a local work, again trying to look for a healthy one, but even if not realize that you can learn from people who have been on the field... even the unhealthy ones. There are many practical benefits as well, such as a potential "office" area with all of the perks you don't have at home. Things like printers, faxes, quiet places to make phone calls, etc. are handy to have. And, you may even be able to forge a relationship with a local church that will partner with you into the future. That should be part of your long-term goal anyway, so why not get started from the beginning?

We need to be better team players in The Church. I also think it would behoove us to develop a mentality that honors and strengthens current works as well as new ones. Sometimes it will not be possible to partner with others because no other church will exist in your area or people group; or no other church will willingly partner with you. If so, then you can plant knowing that as far as it depends on you, you have walked in honor and unity.

Church Plant or Church Splinter?

I feel the need to restate my love for church planters and church planting in general. It is that love that causes me to look more deeply into the practice of church planting as we currently do it in America. I am not so concerned with different church planting models (though there do seem to be some that work better than others) as I am with spiritual and strategic issues. My question is simply this:

Can we really call all of these new works "church plants" if the bodies that are created do not connect to each other and all of the previous works in their community and city? It seems that church planters will often join together while they are training or preparing to launch. But, once they have launched they get consumed with their own work and we successfully create yet another splinter in the Body.

I struggle with seeing four to five churches within 10-15 miles of each other trying to reach the same demographic and psychographic group. It might be a workable strategy if these churches actually worked together. I have not witnessed that very often, though, and I believe it is symptomatic of a large problem. That problem is a diseased church. Try as we might we are not ridding ourselves of the "old" disease simply by creating "new" works.

So let me ask my question another way (please feel free to respond), "What distinguishes a church plant from a church splinter?"

It is just not Sexy enough

Church Health is not a sexy topic, not like Church Planting anyway! Just a few stories of churches going from 100 to 1,000 in a few years and it is easy to see why church plants are sexy! They are the stuff mid-life crisis dreams are made of. I can just hear the marketing now, "Find yourself in an old, traditional, boring, irrelevant, heartless, non-missional church? Well look over here... because I have something brand new for you. It is sleek. It is clean. It is hip and relevant, and it will change your life and your community!" Intended or not, I believe that is the message many church planters hear. Honestly I am almost to the point where I want to shout, "Stop planting more churches!!"

It is not that I am against church planting; for it is clearly a Biblical mandate. I am against the prevailing idea that planting more churches will make The Church in America more healthy. If all of the church plants over the last 10 years exhibited a dramatic shift in vision and effectiveness than their predecessors then I might agree that given enough time and enough new churches the disease in the American church will work itself out. But, there is no such evidence. And, if the number one factor in a healthy church is healthy pastors and staff, then we have to look at what we are doing differently today in calling, training, and supporting our pastors than we were 10 years ago. I think it might be a good idea to take a step back and cure the disease that ails us before we keep spreading it to a new generation of churches.

As I look around the country, the most successful church planting movements are being led by healthy churches; not by conventions or institutions. That leads me to believe that if we can find a way to cure our existing churches then the issue of church planting may very well fix itself.

Paul, the first Church Health Consultant?

I did not think I could be a consultant and a minister. My college degree focused on consulting, business strategy, and process. I left most of that behind when I became a youth pastor and began my official church work in the traditional manner. Ministry, after all, is a deeply spiritual thing whereas business is purely temporal. Or so I thought at the time. God has been waking me up to many such misconceptions recently. Along the way He has shown me that I can use my skills for analysis and my heart for His Kingdom in order to minister to His bride... The Church.

My own bride was the first one who reminded me that in many ways Paul was the first church health consultant. We talk often about Paul as a missionary because of his church planting efforts, but in reality he spent more time as a church consultant than he did as a church planter. An overview of Paul's life reveals that his heart was not just focused on starting new works, but on keeping past works healthy. There are several things I am learning from his example, each of them likely to pop up as individual posts later.

1. Healthy people, not just More people. Paul's letter to the churches and the visits we read about in Acts deal with issues of health, not just admonitions to reach more people. Certainly Paul is concerned with evangelism; it is his stated life's purpose. He also knows that sickness within a church will kill any evangelistic work they may attempt. Healthy parents produce healthy children; sick parents produce sick children, and sick children are likely to die prematurely.
2. Do not Burden the hurting churches. Most churches who need consulting cannot afford the consultant. I believe the worker is worth his wages. I also believe this is an area where those who have resources can minister to those who do not. Just as the church as a whole ministered to Jerusalem during its physical famine, it may be time for the church as a whole to minister to hurting members during our spiritual famine.
3. Don't plant on top of someone else's work. Paul planted new works where other work did not exist. If a previous work did exist he was likely to move on to another area or strengthen the existing work. I think this sheds some interesting light on our modern church planting strategy. It seems that church planting is best done among unreached people groups... and that is not the way the American model seems to be unfolding at the moment.
4. Bring others along in the process. Paul generally travelled with a group. That was for very practical reasons during his time period. It also allowed leadership development to happen on a level that is impossible to replicate through lecture and letter.

I have been reading many books during this transition in my calling. Most of them have to do with church health and revitalization. They offer a call to return to mission and vision; to focus on people outside of your own walls with a heart for evangelism. I agree with those calls, and yet it strikes me as odd that none of these books mention church health ministry as an evangelistic or missional activity. Our first and best example of a missionary was heavily involved in church health consulting.

I must have received a dozen offers to plant a new church in numerous places around the US and Canada these last twelve months. It seems that there is no shortage of funds available for those willing to pick up, move, and begin a new work for God. That is a good thing. I wonder, though, why we are not being just as enthusiastic about training and sending a new generation of missionaries who help correct and strengthen the local churches that already exist. Paul seemed to think church health was a worthy endeavor, and the fact that God led him to record that work for us to read and remember makes me think God believes it is worthwhile as well.