Godgrown

Updates from May, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Mark 9:02 am on May 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Exponential Conference ( 2 )   

  #Exponential – David Garrison 

  Last week was the #Exponential 2011 Conference, where 3,500 church planters from around the world gathered in Orlando, Florida to worship God, enjoy fellowship and networking with each other, and to talk shop.  It was a profoundly encouraging and mind-stretching time, and you might find a few of my next blog posts covering some of the ground we discovered down there.

  Today I want to focus briefly on David Garrison author of Church Planting Movements.  Garrison has spent years as a missionary in India, and now works to study and collect real-time data on CPMs (church planting movements) around the world.  CPMs as he defines them are a rapidly multiplying, unstoppable virus of churches being planted across a region and across social groups. Typically they become  a movement when 1000s of churches are being planted over just a few short years.

  Now to the good stuff:

  He spoke of 30 different movements he was aware of in the Middle East, where over 100,000+ Muslims had come to Christ in recent years (many of whom had seen an unknown man named Jesus appear to them in a dream).  In one part of India alone, over 130,000 churches have been planted in India in the last 10 years.  Similar movements are happening in the underground church in China, and across Africa.

  When asked about a church planting movement in America, he said that most Americans are “not trying” to see a church planting movement happen here.

  Though it saddens me, I agree with him.  For the most part, we still want to build bigger barns for ourselves – we prefer church “addition” rather than church multiplication.  For most of the Christian world (America only represents about 4% of the Christians on the planet) – it is about seeing God’s glory MULTIPLIED through countless churches.

  Synthesizing decades of study of these movements – he describes 5 common elements in CPMs:

  1. Effective entry strategy – connecting with folks far from Jesus in a contextually relevant way
  2. Effective Gospel communication – simple (not simplistic) exchange of what the Gospel means for this culture
  3. Effective Discipleship – Americans he said have inherited much from seminaries, but we must learn to become not only hearers but doers of God’s Word.
  4. Effective church formation – the essence of a church is Christ himself, everything that forms must be from him
  5. Long Term Leadership Development – when training leaders, think of those they will train, and those they too will train…think of your leader you are training like a lens into the future.  What kind of leaders will grow in this movement?

  But that’s not what gets Garrison excited – he keeps his eyes on what truly matters – a CPM is not an end in itself- it is all about bringing God glory; and every healthy church planted is another chance to display “God on earth as he really is.”  We want to see God’s glory multiplied (as the waters cover the sea, Hab 2:14) – its not about the numbers, or making some list of CPM prescriptions (he spoke of CPMs in articulately descriptive terms alone), it is not even about “missional,” it is about the glory of God.

  Next post I’ll go a little deeper into Garrison’s thoughts – and how we can begin to engage in a church planting movement of God here in America.

  
   

  Reply Cancel reply

  Required fields are marked *

  Name *

  Email *

  Website

  

• 

  Mark 11:29 am on February 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  The Other Side of the Horse 

  Much has been written in the last decade or so of the growing house church movement in the West.  As a church planter investing in simple forms of community development and sustainable, viral faith communities, I welcome this new movement to America!  But there is something lacking in most house churches in America – a real sense of the “congregation.”

  Humans have a tendency to fall off one side of the horse, only to get back on and promptly fall right off the other side.  Mega-churches captured our attention with the regional impact, dynamic programs and preaching, and resource capabilities in the 1970-90′s, and forerunners like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren still shape the American Christian conversation in essential ways.  But sometime in the mid 1990′s, the “emerging church movement” erupted and fresh expressions of “micro church” began counter-balancing congregations with 10,000+ members.

  Missionaries from around the world began contributing to the ecclesiology of America – saying essentially, “Look, this church planting thing has been our main project for centuries – and we mostly plant churches in people’s homes.”  Many American Christians thought – if it works around the world, why not America too?

  The trouble began when just anyone started planting a little church in their living room, for any reason at all under both positive (let’s share Jesus with our neighbors) and negative motivations (let’s react against the abuses of the churches I’ve been a part of).

  The end result was that many house churches, even ones that really strive for health, simply cannot do what the mega-church can do!  There are simply not enough hands on deck in a group of 12 people; not enough resources (financial and otherwise), not enough diversity to build a fully functional Body of Christ in an area.  For folks that staunchly hold to the local autonomy of a house church, I wish you well, but I’ll expect to see your house church in the intensive care unit before the end of the year!

  If we don’t want to fall off the “other side of the horse” we must rely on an extended family. The church in the New Testament, while each one of them gathered for worship and lived out Kingdom life in a local house church, realized a greater “Church” that they depended on that existed beyond their walls.  This MACRO Church, connected communities in a given city or region, offers healthy leadership, the financial support, the complete spiritual gift matrix, and much more.  It is an interdependent community of communities; a node of resources that helps spiritually form both the individual, and contributes to the health of each house church!

  The mega-church can find this balance with real small-groups that aren’t just another program for people to attend; and a house church can find the same balance by connecting with or forming a real network of a dozen or so house churches that bring diversity and regional leadership.  Hugh Halter and Matt Smay in their book And: The Gathered and Scattered Church help put more form to this concept.

  —

  Sign up for MACRO!

  If you are a part of a small group, house church, or congregation – and you’re ready to explore the practical implications of developing a healthy balance  in Christian community, Godgrown is releasing MACRO March 1st – sign up and invite others in your community to learn alongside you!

  
   
• 

  Mark 9:50 am on February 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  The Ecology of God 

  In the month of January, Godgrown rolled out our latest online course in the Layers of Christ-Centered Community. January was all about the MONO Layer.  It was a course in the relationship you can have with the Living God – a relationship that is personal, but never private, that is always in conversation, always dynamic.

  The reports coming back from those that took the class are very encouraging – for folks that spent a month really exploring the ways in which they are shaped by the MONO Layer, there is a greater sense of clarity in listening to God, greater clarity in difficult decisions in their lives, and a optimistic posture that God is always speaking to us, if we only learn how to listen.

  This March 1st, we’ll release the MACRO Layer course, and you’re invited! As we begin to turn our attention from the MONO Layer of Christ-Centered Community to the MACRO Layer, we’re asking the question:

  “How are people formed into the image of Jesus when they engage the MACRO Layer?”

  The MACRO Layer (written about here) is the gathered church/ the network/ the congregation/ the extended family of families.  This is a course on learning how to establish and cultivate “a system of spiritual nurture” – an ecology of God on earth.

  For the next few days on this blog, we’ll be unpacking some of the elements of this powerful Layer -

  …how it focuses us on the LORD

  …how it uniquely forms us into his image

  …how it binds us to his local church, a network of Divine love on earth

  …and how it propels us into God’s raw and wild mission!

  Join me each day this blog - and sign up for the MACRO Layer today!