Rebirth

Sometimes God very tangibly shows us favor, seemingly out of the blue. As a church planter, one of the greatest challenges I face is finding adequate worship gathering space that will facilitate our worship needs, children's ministry needs, visibility, missional presence, and also be affordable. This takes greater precedence being in a smaller city in the Midwest where facility equals permanence (and thereby trust). One thing that I've prayed for for quite some time is that an older congregation with facility would pour itself into a new work as the gospel plows forward into the 21st century. God began to answer this prayer a couple months ago when I was contacted by another church in town to do this very thing, and this Sunday will mark our first Sunday partnering with Springfield First Baptist.

Let me point out a few important things that helped this to happen:

• Our facility needs to bathed in prayer.
• We made intentional strides to build relationships and a good reputation with local churches, particularly those in the denomination we're a part of.
• We've taken a position of humility and a simple desire to serve.
• We allowed our facility needs to be widely known and prayed for.
• We didn't force anything to happen, but were patient. God just began doing it.

It got me thinking of a blog I wrote in August 2006 that spoke of this desire. It's pretty amazing to see how God answered this right when we really needed it and are prepared for it.

My new city & home, Springfield, has had a pretty rough six months in regards to the weather. A couple tornadoes ripped through parts of the city last March, and then about six weeks ago got nailed again with the hurricane-type storms that hit the Midwest.

One thing that happened during the first tornadoes was that a lot of the warning sirens were destroyed, and the city is now in the middle of putting up new, louder, and significantly more sirens in the city. The article can be read here: http://www.sj-r.com/Sections/News/Stories/94523.asp

So it got me thinking about my new church plant. In a sense, we're like the new sirens that are going up. We have a vision of permeating throughout the city to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to be loud about it. We want to reach new areas and people. We want people to be saved from eternal destruction.

Sadly, there are some churches that are like the old sirens. Their ability to proclaim the Gospel has been reduced to a whisper. They have trouble keeping up with changing culture around them. One big storm could come along and take them out.

I have a vision for these older, godly churches. My vision for them is about investing their remaining life, energy, and resources into newer, younger churches with fresh vision and energy to reach Springfield for Jesus. It includes the godly saints in these churches providing much needed direction and mentoring for the younger saints (like Titus 2 encourages churches to do). What better way for churches with a rich history of winning souls for Jesus to continue their legacy?

What this will take is the younger churches to not be so cocky & arrogant, and to see the value in the saints that have gone before us. This will take the older saints to not be so resistant to change and to just hold onto what they've had for so long, but to be open to new methods of reaching people who need Jesus. It's about being inter-dependant on each other, and not making silly "generational" wars over things like music and engaging non-believers on their own turf.

So, I would like to encourage you younger saints to find an older saint and get to know them and see the tremendous value they could be in your life. I also encourage the older saints to seek out younger saints and look past the outward generational differences and see their hearts who want to love people like Jesus did. And I encourage all us to meditate on Titus 2 this week as well.

God will meet the needs you have as a planter. Just be patient and wait on him.

Grace & peace...

Ryan

Wives Facebook Group

If you are a church plater (or replanter, or a church planting church pastor), as we are trying to get us as men connected, my lovely wife, Dawn, is making concerted efforts to get wives connected as well.

Being the wife of a church planter or pastor is a difficult position to be in. There are expectations - most of the them unsaid - and she is typically the only married woman in the church who is forced to live as a single mom on Sunday mornings. Depending on her situation and experience, she sometimes gets thrown into leading the children's ministry or worship ministry by default, when in fact, just keeping up with the kids and her crazy church planting husband is more than she can take. No one quite understands her world and the lack of freedom that she often has. It is paramount that planters & pastors better love, care for, and connect their wives.

So, to begin connecting with the Illinois Cloverleaf Wives Facebook Group, follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=262684125500&ref=search&sid=622573646.2409375106..1

Grace & Peace,

Ryan

The Idols of Church Planters

This list is completely un-scientific and based off of my own life and observations. So, in no particular order:

1. Their own image (clothing, hair styles (including facial hair!), language used, etc)

2. Their own ideas (read: arrogance)

3. Culture (particularly their "cool city")

4. Their particular theology (in my circles, theology that's more reformed)

5. Their technology (Mac or PC? iPhone or Blackberry?)

6. Their social media networks (how many FB friends or Twitter followers you have)

7. Where their church meets (a bar, a club, a theater, etc.)

8. Their ministry philosophy (platform, house church, hybrid)

9. Their ability to communicate (either preaching the bible or engaging/understanding culture)

10. Their network or lack of network

11. Their "missional lifestyle" (micro-brew drinking, cigar smoking, independent film watching)

What would you add to the list? What do you see church planters putting too much stock into that are, in effect, neutering the gospel?

I want your feedback!

Ryan

The Call to Ministry

I was asked to speak at Immanuel Baptist Church's family camp the other weekend about church planting, particularly my story with planting Delta. The first point I made was to be sure in your calling, and there is a distinct difference between a call to ministry and a career in ministry. During a Q&A session at the end of my message, someone thoughtfully asked about how you in fact discern a ministry "call." I gave my opinion, but for the sake of this post, I thought I'd punt and go to a more authoritative voice, that of the "prince of preachers" himself, Charles Spurgeon. In his classic, "Lectures to my Students," Spurgeon outlines 4 imperatives about calling:

1. The first sign of the heavenly calling is an intense, all-absorbing desire for the work.

2. In the second place, there must be aptness to teach and some measure of the other qualities needful for the office of a public instructor.

3. In order to further prove a man's call, after a little exercise of his gifts, he must see a measure of conversion-work going on under his efforts.

4. A step beyond all this is...the will of the Lord concerning pastors is made known through the prayerful judgment of His church...your preaching should be acceptable to the people of God.

I greatly appreciate Spurgeon's assessment. Your desire to minister must be so strong that you'd do it for free. To serve as a foundation for particular gifting, there are to be signs of common grace in that the basic skills needed are somewhat natural. Mission is central, as the general call to ministry is to "make disciples" which means to turn pagans into Christians. And finally, no one "calls himself", but the call is affirmed by other Christ-followers who also are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

If you are trying to discern a call to ministry, particularly to church planting, weigh these markers out heavily in your life. 3 out of 4 doesn't cut it. Because as Spurgeon says in another part of his Lectures, "for the ministry of Christ has been truly called 'the choicest of his choice, the elect of his election, a church picked out of the church'." This does not mean that ministers are super-human, but that the holiness required of the position is heavier than that of any other lot in life.

Take calling seriously. Avoid at all costs a "career" in ministry. If you don't, it won't take long until you burn yourself out, greatly hurt those closest to you, lose the trust of those in your care, and hurt the reputation of Jesus' church.

Tweet Your Sermon

Whew...long time no blog! Talk about life being nutty...

But here's something I was thinking about last week: as we seek to communicate well in a clear, understandable, exhorting, and motivating way, can you fit the central theme of your sermon in a "tweet"? You know, 140 characters (includes spaces!). Say what you want about the social networking/micro-blogging phenomenon called Twitter, it is certainly revolutionizing communication. And being able to boil down the central theme of your sermon into once, succint phrase is a good thing.

Here's mine from last week: On whom you depend determines if you live a life of slavery or freedom.

I was teaching from Galatians 4:21-5:1 and had four points that illustrated slavery, four points that illustrated freedom, and four points in application to live in gospel freedom, but everything fit nicely under that "tweet" so people (myself included!) could listen and apply with the proper grid. The most powerful communication is simple. While that doesn't always mean you just give a three-word message like Winston Churchill once did (he simply emphatically repeated "Never give up!" over and over, and it's regarded as one of the best speeches ever...weird, but the context was WWII, so it was very culturally relevant), it does mean that you should have one driving point that all of your sub-points support and always go back to.

So, in your effort to preach the gospel in a Twitter-friendly way, I simply say "Never give up!"

Exegete Your City...again and again and again

One of the primary things a new church planter does is exegete his city in order to properly contextualize the gospel.  Exegeting your city involves learning its history, demographics, economics, future planning, and main attractions (what your city is known for).  Basically, this is the type of thing you can find out by visiting the U.S. Census website and your city's website, in addition to websites of the local chamber of commerce, tourism, weekly and daily newspaper, and business associations.  Honestly, it's not really rocket science.

But then there's another level of exegeting, and that exegeting the people of your city...going beneath the demographic snapshots to discover what people are like.  You begin to find this out by simply talking to people and making friends.  Chat with neighbors, the bank teller, or your barista.  I especially enjoy posing a simple questions to my waiter/waitress when I'm at a restaurant.  I did this just last night and simply asked two questions: "Are you from Springfield?" and "What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Springfield?" (or a variation would be "Describe Springfield in a sentence.")  You find out surprising things.  Interestingly, the waitress last night was born here, but move as a child and grew up in a small town in NW Kansas and just recently moved back here to be with her extended family.  Her impression of Springfield? Scary.  Pretty unexpected.  So the question in my mind is, how does/can Delta provide a sense of safety and security for the young, single 20-something ladies in our city?  Another way to discover what people are like is to just begin to ask your core team (who lives and works in the city and maybe grew up where you're planting) is what their friend are like.  Where do their friends live, work, recreate, etc.?  Not only will you gain great insight, but you'll also begin to train your core team to think and process like missionaries as well!

But what about an older church planter?  Meaning, what a guy (like me) who's been in my new city a few years, understands the basic footprint of the city, but still feels like (to borrow a term from Ed Stetzer) the "missional code" isn't fully cracked?  What I'm thinking about/learning now is that like people, cities have a personality type and even suffer the effects of "birth order".  Psychologists generally find birth order personality studies a little on the weak side, but I believe there is some merit.  Take a classic middle child, for example: always fighting for attention, carries a chip on his shoulder for being overlooked, can be reclusive, pessimistic, and is always trying too hard.  I'm beginning to think that there's a level of my particular city's personality that's like a middle child.  People in my city (Springfield, Il) can tend to be on the frustrated/angry side due to limitations that our size city has and by being overshadowed by "big brother" Chicago and "little brother" St. Louis (or even throw in Southern Illinois in general, which has some beautiful topography).  Even though we boast things about being the state capitol, laying claim to (kinda) 2 presidents (one of whom is possibly regarded as the best president we've had - and I mean Lincoln), have a large medical education community, was a main stop on Route 66, invented not only the corn (cozy) dog but also the first drive through window, and no matter what the vote said a couple years ago, is the true home/inspiration of The Simpson's.  But, we get out shined by being between two major metros.  By not having a major university, both Bloomington and Champaign/Urbana can get better press and cultural opportunities.  All this to say, it reflects in a city-wide personality and attitude that we need to find a way to speak the gospel into.

So, have you fully exegeted your city?  Have you moved from the footprint to the people to the personality?  Do not only the hard work of an evangelist, but the hard work of a missiologist like Paul did in Acts 17.  And do it not for the success of your ministry or your reputation, but for the sake of the gospel.

Technology for Church Planters & Church Plants

Part of the beauty of church planting is being mobile.  You typically don't have an office (I highly recommend NOT getting an office until at least after year 2; borrow space until then...but that's another post), you don't have church buildings to work in and maintain, and you get to actually be out in your city working in coffee shops, pubs, the park, the library, really, wherever you can typically pick up a Wi-Fi network and actually be around the people you hope to reach with the gospel.  So with the blessing of mobility, what are the right things to invest your ministry dollars in and your times & energy in?  Here's my list:

1) A laptop. An absolute no-brainer.  Mac or PC? It's up to you.  I'm not even going there.

2) A good smartphone.  I say "good" because there are crappy ones out there.  I used a Samsung Blackjack for a couple years and was pleased with it.  When it came time to upgrade, I went with the iPhone 3G (8gb).  Here's the deal: with a smartphone, your phone, calendar, email, twitter, facebook, and web browser are literally in the palm of your hand.  I don't have to lug my laptop everywhere with me any more.  I do highly recommend the iPhone because it does everything you really would hope a smartphone would do, plus you eliminate a device as its an iPod as well (to listen to all those sermons you use for research :-D).  As far as AT&T goes, the iPhone is actually cheaper to buy and cheaper for monthly charges than most other smartphones.

3) Blog.  Having a blog (like this one) that you can post teaching/thoughts on theology, missional living, or even use it as appropriate disclosure for personal events in your life so people can get to know you and trust you is key.  I use this blog for more thoughts specifically regarding church planting, and my Transformissionary blog is for theology, mission, and personal stuff.  I'm now using my Transformissionary blog on Mondays to post notes from Sunday's sermon for people who weren't in attendance or who keep up with what we're doing at Delta from afar.  Blogger and Wordpress are by far the most popular blog sites out there (and they're free).

4) Website.  If you don't have a website for your church, you will not reach the culture.  We live in a digital information age, and the web is the new front door for churches.  I would say that upwards of 90% of visitors at Delta have gone to our website first to get to know us and see if it's worth their time.  There are places you can get free websites, but you get what you pay for.  If your website feels like a 1999 website, the typical 20-30something will write you off as out of touch.  Invest what you can in a quality website, using a good company like ChurchSquare, Church Plant Media, Clover, etc.  Our Delta site was actually built in-house, so it became a true expression of who we are and not a cut and paste thing.

5) Facebook & Twitter.  Social networking is like money these days.  Being connected is just as good as money in my opinion.  FB and Twitter, while having some similarities, actually reach different tribes.  FB is more designed to connect you socially with old friends, family, or even causes.  Twitter, when used properly, is a great way to quickly get word out about an event, link to a helpful website, or encourage people with brief thoughts on scripture, mission, leadership, etc.  FB now has a great application called "Selective Twitter Status" so only the "tweets" you want end up as your FB status (if you choose to have them talk to each other).  Bottom line: FB and Twitter as missional opportunities that continue to spread like wildfire.

6) Google.  Google apps continue to amaze me.  Gmail's storage, labels, & filters make it (I think) the best email out there.  GoogleDocs are so easy to create, share, and access - we even maintain our database and mailing list through them.  You can share pictures through Picasa and share calendars as well (and Google Calendar will talk to Outlook, which syncs super easy to your smartphone).

That's my short list of church planting technology essentials.  I would also  briefly mention having an option for online giving as well, through PayPal or some other service.  I know there are some theological issues with this, but to not offer it as a viable option for people to give is not being culturally sensitive or missional.