A Missional Church Can Exist in Any Size or Situation

Dr. Lou Jander, Texas District, LCMS, shared this article on his weekly email recently. It was written by Rev. Phil Stevenson of the Wesleyan Church and published on the Expanding Wave newsletter. It shows that an a missional church can exist in any situation and with any size congregation.

Last month I was in West Virginia with my partner in ministry, Jim Dunn. We were presenting a seminar entitled "The Intentional Missional Church." The host of this event shared with us that we would be holding the training at Three Mile Wesleyan Church. "This church," he explained, "is located in a holler."

Honestly, I was both intrigued and concerned about this prospect. I had never been in a holler. I wasn't even sure what a holler was. And any connotation I had of a holler was not overly positive. Images of feuds and folk not welcoming of outsiders played themselves out in my vivid imagination. Riding with our host on roads that crawled deeper into the wooded hills did nothing to abate my mental picture. What I discovered, however, was anything but what I had created in my imagination.

A holler is a small valley that has only one way in and one way out. The Three Mile Church was located at the 'head' of the holler. The head is about as far back as you can get in a holler. It is located on a very small piece of property. To call it postage stamp size would be much too generous. It is here Pastor Billy Burdette has been ministering for over 10 years. It is here I discovered a missional church. It is here God taught me lessons of faith, vision and effectiveness. Here are the discoveries:

• It's not your location that limits you, it's the limits you put on your location. I could think of all kinds of reasons a church should not be effective in such an obscure location. There is not much drive-by traffic in a holler.
• Needs are everywhere; if you notice them you can meet them. Three Mile had just completed the construction of a gym/family life center. It has a fully furnished kitchen, with an impressive eating area. Why did they build such a facility at the Head of the Holler? Pastor Billy shared that there was no place for people to gather. No place for folks to have anniversary parties, wedding receptions, family reunions, etc. It was meeting needs. It was a community center.
• Quality is in the little things. What I saw, they did with quality. They had motion-activated hand towel dispensers. They had flat screens in each Sunday School Room upstairs. The equipment in the Kitchen was excellent.
• Clarity of mission brings focus to ministry. Pastor Billy knows that young people need to be reached. They have chosen to focus on teens and younger. This is reflected in their new gym/family life center. It is reflected in their programming. They run a midweek kid's ministry that has, at times, connected with over 100 kids. They feed dozens. Their youth program runs over 30 people.
• A leader who has a heart for God and a passion for people will be effective. Pastor Billy is bi-vocational. This could be an excuse for not doing what is necessary to reach his community. He doesn't allow that. He wants to make his God known. He loves people. This causes him to do whatever it takes to connect the two.
• Missional matters. Being missional is simply looking outside of ourselves to see the community that surrounds us. Three Mile Church is missional because it is driven by the community needs, not congregational wants.

The next time you find yourself bemoaning your location; the next time you discover yourself thinking there are no more people to reach; the next time you believe missional is too postmodern for you; the next time you believe you are too small to do things with quality; I want you to take a moment and consider the church at the head of the holler.

Is Your Church Externally Focused?

4 Characteristics of an Externally Focused Church:

1. Externally focused churches are convinced that good deeds and good news can't and shouldn't be separated. Just as it takes two wings to lift an airplane off the ground, so externally focused churches couple good news with good deeds to make an impact in their communities. The good news explains the purpose of the good deeds.
2. They see themselves as vital to the health and well-being of their communities. They believe that their communities, with all of their aspirations and challenges, cannot be truly healthy without the church's involvement. It is only when the church is mixed into the very life and conversation of the city that it can be an effective force for change.
3. They believe that ministering and serving are the normal expressions of Christian living. Even more, they believe that Christians grow best when they are serving and giving themselves away to others. They are convinced that Christians can learn through good instruction, but they really cannot grow if they remain uninvolved in ministry and service.
4. Externally focused churches are evangelistically effective. People are looking for places of authenticity where the walk matches the talk, where faith is making a difference.

— Excerpted from “The Externally Focused Church” by Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson

Evangelism Today -- Asking the Right Questions

Many churches are still using evangelism methods that reflect a Christendom culture of the twentieth century. Years ago I was trained in the Kennedy “Evangelism Explosion” technique that centered around a key question asked after building a trusting relationship: “If you were to die today, could you say for sure that you would go to heaven?” The standard response to that question was “Well, I hope so. I’ve tried to be good.” Or, “I don’t know if anyone can say that for sure.” To which the evangelist would reply “Well, I’ve got good news for you.” and then proceed with a grace based presentation of the gospel.

As time went on, I saw a change in the respondent’s answers. Faithful Christians still answered “Yes,” but an increasing number of people would simply say, “To tell you the truth, I haven’t thought much about it.”

Research commissioned by the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Church now backs up my observation. (See chart below)
People’s spiritual concerns seem no longer to be focused on the traditional concepts of sin and death, heaven and hell. Instead, they seem more focused on this life and finding meaning and purpose in their daily existence. (See chart below)It is easy to complain about “Whatever happened to sin?’ or declare this a shift to self-centered consumer society, but the truth is that “How can I find more meaning and purpose in my life?” remain relational and missional issues, and the good news we have to offer lies in our relationship with Christ and our participation in His mission in this world.

An old tool in the sin/heaven approach was something called “The Four Spiritual Laws,” an evangelism tool used for years, but not very effective today. Not long ago, someone devised a new tool called “The Big Story” that is based on the relational/missional model. Take a look at part one and part two below.


These are not the final answer, but they mark a step along the way to asking the right questions for a new time.
Addendum: A new tool getting good reviews in Reformed circles is the EvangeCube. It is graphically intriguing, but is basically the old "four laws" approach. Compare this approach with the ones you have just watched. Which do you think would be more effective among unchurched people that you know?

Leaders and Managers

One of the distinctions that many people seem to miss is the important distinction between a leader and a manager. The key, I suppose, is that leaders deal with people, while managers deal with projects. Often a person is chosen to lead because he or she has the ability to “get the job done.” Expect that person to be a good manager. A leader will first help everyone see what the job is that must be done, then inspire the people to use heir gifts to accomplish the job.

I ran across the brief, simple video below that is full of short quotes and wonderful ideas about the qualities of leadership. It’s worth taking a few minutes to watch.

Easter "Wordle"

"Wordle"s are word cloud pictures computer generated from any text according to a formula weighted by the number of times a word is used in a text. You can create your own Wordle at http://www.wordle.net (click here).

At Christmas I did a Wordle of Luke 2 and discovered that it was filled with the ordinary: place names, people’s names, the story of God coming down into ordinary life.

I thought I would do the same for Easter, and the result is the Wordle above of Matthew 28:1-10. Not many names and places this time. The big word was a human condition—“afraid.” That was followed by “Jesus” and “tomb”. (an empty one) And the next were calls to missionary action: “see” “go” and “tell”.

In this time of many fears, the message clear: He is risen. The tomb is empty. Now SEE … GO … TELL.

Who is Fighting the "Worship Wars"?

One of my “Christmas books” that I am just getting to finish was a recent paperback by Gary Nelson entitled Borderland Churches: A Congregation’s Introduction to Missional Living.
The book is about missional living on the congregational level, about the church engaging the culture that surrounds it in the borderland between faith and unbelief. For the church to live out its mission in the borderlands, we will have to understand that the mission field isn’t over there, it’s in our back yard. Borderland ministries, to be faithfully relevant, must move from a “come to” (attractional) understanding to a “go to” (incarnational) one. Borderland ministry requires a great deal of willingness to embrace radical change. But to those of us who preach change, he warns this call to change is not mere tinkering. True change, he points out moves beyond the superficial, beyond simply changing the style of music, to changing attitudes and presuppositions. He particularly speaks to the time and effort those of us in established denominations have spent in fighting the “worship wars”…

Learning to sing in this strange time has little to do with choruses or hymns. The cosmetic worship changes of the last decades of church life, while at times helpful, have also proven distracting. The desire to be more appealing and relevant in the rhythms of our worship to those who live in the borderlands is genuine. For some churches, altering our songs of worship was the beginning of a journey toward relevance and impact. However, the worship wars of the last two decades of the twentieth century were moments of trivial pursuit. They placed simplistic and shallow characteristics on people outside the influence of the church, making it sound too often as if borderland people were simply sitting at home on Sunday waiting for us as the church to change our worship. If it only changed, they would come. If we seek to engage people in meaningful dialog, we must engage them at deeper ;levels. Borderland people are not superficial. They are unlikely to be drawn into our world by the simple alteration of our music. Your next-door neighbor is not likely to be asking why you do not sing choruses. People searching spiritually are not agonizing over the hardness of our pews. Many of them are simply living in the sincere belief that they have found a much more meaningful way to live their lives on Sunday, let alone Monday and beyond. The song we must learn to sing is much more profound than a chorus or a hymn. It is about attitudes and presuppositions. It is about atmosphere where we offer genuine community and authentic relationships. The song seeks to answer the question of what it means to be the church relevantly in this context and these times. Trapped in our memories, we only hinder the sense of urgency required to initiate change. P. 17

Exponential Change and Luther's Catechism

Attached below is what I think is the latest edition of the “Did You Know 3.0” video. I say I think it is the latest edition because it deals with exponential change, and by the time it is published it is out of date.

The video ends with the question, ”What does this mean?” Keep it in mind as you watch the video. You will enjoy it. If nothing else, it will give you some sermon illustrations or interesting facts to share with your friends.

What does this mean? The answer to that is a complex one. For some it means the world is going crazy. For others, it means we live in an exciting time of change and cultural revolution. I lean towards the latter, though sometimes fear the former. Leadership Network recently published a chart of how people adopt change.

In a time of exponential change, the wave of change moves faster. Perhaps most of us –even the early adapters – never catch up. By the time the smartest people have figured out what is happening in the economy, the culture, the church, it has already happened and something new is on its way. Long range planning as we used to know it, must take on a different face. More time is spent in preparing than planning--preparing through establishing our core values, our mission, our giftedness that will enable us to serve, witness and re-form ourselves as God’s people in the steady stream of change.

Beyond that, “What does this mean?” strikes my Lutheran mind as a typical Lutheran catechetical question that is always answered within the gracious will and work of God in Jesus Christ. And so, facing the future of change, one says with Luther …

Thy will be done.
What does this mean?: The good and gracious will of God is done, indeed, without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also.

Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.
What does this mean? The kingdom of God comes, indeed, without our prayers, but we pray in this petition that it may come among us also.

Oh, yes … “This is most certainly true.”