(based on David Garrison’s Church Planting Movements: How God is Redeeming a Lost World)

Ever thought about whether or not “organic churches” were in the Bible? While you might not find the actual coinage, the first century was spiraling with new converts and multiplying churches that were planting other churches…sounds pretty organic to me! Truly, the New Testament testifies to a church planting movement that occurred in the eariest days of Christianity!

Church planting movements can be traced to Jesus himself, who trained 12 disciples only long enough to give them the ‘keys of the kingdom’ before slipping away, letting the disciples spread the Good News.

Vision Driven - It was Jesus who filled his followers with a vision for the entire world’s salvation, and prepared them for what kind of community would naturally flow out of this salvation. What other characteristics did Jesus instil in his original organic church?

Prayer - Prayer saturated the lives of the earliest Christian communites. Jesus taught them to pray the Lord’s prayer, as well the power of prayer that can expunge demons, and resist temptation. Today, organic churches are known for prayer that changes lives.

Abundant Evangelism - Jesus’ direction to go into towns two-by-two and share the Good News was not forgotten. Though The Book of Acts follows the ministry of Peter and Paul, we hear of the gospel spreading without hinderance (Apollos comes from Alexandria with the gospel, but how did it get to this great city? Even remote islands like Crete were infiltrated with Christian leaders for Titus to entrust with the gospel. Organic church planting movements today exhibit this same vibrant evangelistic characteristic, spreading faster than its leaders can keep track of!

Scriptural Authority - Even Jesus fled to the Sciptures in times of crisis (his temptation in the desert). Following in his footsteps, the early church was wed to the holy Word of God, even speaking it as they fell in martyrdom (as was the case with Stephen). Today’s Church Planting Movements are thinking theologically and biblically about what it means to be a church today. They are even finding themselves more resilliant in times of crisis, because they focus on God’s Word.

Models for Multiplication - For so long we have neglected the only model for evangelism that is ordained by Christ himself! In Luke 10, Jesus teaches his followers how to spread the Gospel. Sending them out in pairs, they should enter a villiage and find a “person of peace”, leading to the conversion of a whole village. In the next chapter, we hear that Jesus now has 72 disciples. It looks like they followed Jesus’ instructions! (12/2 = 6 (pairs of disciples) x 12 (new converts) = 72 disciples)! Jesus then sends out the 72, and when we come back in Acts, Peter baptizes 3,000 believers! (72/2 = 36 pairs of disciples x 12 = 444) this made the total disciple-membership over 500. (500/2 = 250 pairs x 12 = 3,000!) Interesting…clearly the early church followed this model of discipleship and evangelism.

Preparation for Persectution - Both the early church and the organic churches of today know that persecution will be the lot in life for those who choose to follow Christ.

All in the Family - Unlike the individualistic conversions of Western believers, most Organic Church Movements are started through whole-family conversions! Biblical examples of this include Jesus’ family, Peter and Andrew, James and John with their faither Zebedee, and Cornelius’ family.

Divine Power in Evangelism and Ministry - Earliest churches cast out demons, healed the sick and even raised the dead! Many church planting movments are built around this same principle, and are even seeing God working his miracles in our world again!

Person of Peace - We’ve talked some already about how Jesus taught his disciples to look for the person of peace in a particular village or neighborhood. But did Paul follow Jesus’ example? He always seemed to have a companion with him in his travels, (going two by two with Timothy, Silas, etc). And Paul has a vision of a man in Macedonia calling him to come and share the gospel. When he gets there, he finds that this “person of peace” is actually a woman named Lydia.

Things are going great with our LTG!

(For those unaware a Life Transformation Group is a gathering of about 2-4 men or women that meet to breathe in God’s Word, and breath out sin. These groups are led by the participants and have no set curriculum. They develop accountable lives that focus on the transforming Word of God, and they regularly pray for the lost.)

This is the first one I have ever been a part of, and so far we’ve been really blessed. Already, my buddy Will is taking leadership of the group, making the LTG his own. My hope is that we will begin inviting others to our LTG, and eventually it will begin to multiply.

“Why keep it only at 3,4 people?” some might ask. This is not your regular Sunday morning bible study. Fundamentally, there are tons of reasons biblically (”a chord of three strands is not broken”, “where two or three are gathered there I am with you…”) and structurally (its just tough coordinating the schedules of many more than about 3 people. Now, if you can’t meet with a group, start your own!

So much of my church life has been centered around growing the same thing bigger and bigger. Its not in my church DNA to multiply while staying small. But keeping things grassroots and below the institutional radar might just be what a postmodern, authentic faith looks like. If we can’t find multiplication with this, the most simple level of Christian fellowship, then we wont be able to see it on any larger levels. It all starts here; where the theoretical rubber meets the existential road.

Keep in prayer for this burgeoning LTG - we want it to grow and then multiply over and over again so that more and more people will have a chance for life transformation. It is all for the glory of God!

To learn more about LTG’s click here.

Do we weep for the church, or for the world?

That was a question posed to me a few days ago, during a conversation on church planting. It is hard to know just how many Christians there are in North America, but in the national census reports, not one county in the entire United States showed any numerical growth from 1990 to 2000. Whatever the megachurches membership might look like, the truth is most of it is transferred Christians.

So as we consider simple church planting movements (an opportunity to put the gospel and the church back into the hands of the people), we ask ourselves, “Do we spend time convincing the current Christians that there are other options to doing church, or do we move deeply into the harvest fields of the lost?”

As we struggled with this, we cautioned ourselves, “We don’t want to reject the Bride of Christ just because she has a few blemishes and is overweight.” Another said, “But avoiding diet and exercise is something no bride would consider right before the wedding.”

In the end, it came down to the question, “Do you weep for the church, or for the world?” Some have a calling to stay with the institutional church and slowly open their minds to new ways in which God is working and forming his community in the world. Others are more interested in searching for the lost, and calling them to initiate brand new churches.

Personally, I am most drawn to those outside the church. I make friends with them easier, I can be more honest with them, I have more faith in their future leadership as a church planter themselves! I weep for the world, and I love the church. As long as God gives me life, I plan to spend it in the harvest fields, developing leaders who can start a movement of simple churches that will spread like wild fire.

So here’s a question for ya - when God gives you a specific calling to be a leader for a Christian community, and then opens doors to give you the training necessary you’d expect he’d just drop opportunities for life-long, full-time ministry right in your lap. But NOOO! He sends you this wild curve ball instead! Instead of setting you up nice and pretty with a great church that will take care of your family and your health plan, he sends you a vision of a “new way to do church” altogether. This way is powerful, dynamic, authentic…and moneyless.

It’s true that simple churches (like those that meet in houses) actually give MUCH more than your average church does proportionally - (6% of Christians in traditional churches tithe, 50% of Christians in simple churches MORE than tithe!) - but what happens when you drop down into an area where there IS NO church?

I know that I have been blessed by God to be the initiator of a new church planting movement in a city. I’m really struggling this morning with God’s gifts and visions he’s given me up to this point, because I’m beginning to see a huge leap of faith I’m going to have to take in the next few years. How will God provide for Katrina and I? How will all this preparation take shape in a life-long ministry (without the benefits of healthcare I’m guessing?).

The answer is in the burrito.

This Friday, we’ll be sharing some of these (and other) questions and frustrations with my professor Kent Smith. We’ll be meeting at a Mexican Restaurant for the best burritos in town.  He teaches Organic Church Planting, and is the missions coordinator for North America at ACU. I’ll let you know how that goes.

ACU’s Centennial Homecoming is this weekend, and you can TELL! Tents set up all over campus, whole buildings covered in purple and white tissue paper…it will be a blast. I want to get as much homework done as I can before this evening’s events begin.

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Reflection from 2 Samuel 2:18-23! I thought this was pretty interesting. So David is trying to gain control of his kingdom now that Saul has been killed. However, Saul’s son is starting a civil war of sorts. The army commander for the rebel army is named Abner, while David’s main man is Joab. Both, very powerful, respected men. Joab has a younger brother named Asahel, who is known for his long distance running. As these verses play out, Abner escapes a battle only to find Asahel chasing behind him. Asahel chases his enemy for what seems to be all day without rest. Finally, just as Asahel catches up to Abner and prepares to attack, Abner trusts his spear into Asahel, killing him.
So why tell this story? I am a runner, but not just with my feet. Our entire culture is running, and we do a great job of running without stopping to consider what might happen if we actually catch up to what we are chasing! Are our greatest desires literally killing us? Asahel’s might have been to become as popular as his great older brother; but what is your greatest desire? As people walked past Asahel’s dead body, the text says they “stopped, and stood still”. God convicted my heart as I read this, for just like those who stood still, I realized how often my drive for success and acceptance among my peers might end up killing me, and that stillness might bring me back to my senses.

“Be still and know that I am God…”

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And now for something, completely different!
I found a nifty blog you might be interested in. Its a group blog, a network of simple house churches living out their journey for all to see. Click here.

Have a great one. And for those at ACU, spend some time with alumni who have been here years before. It is always amazing to meet those who have gone on before us!