Tuesday, April 30, 2019

5 Situations in Which Matthew 18 Does not Apply


Matthew 18:15-20 is one of the most helpful passages in the Bible when it comes to dealing with disputes and differences between members of the same local church. It does not, however, apply in absolutely every situation that arises in the Christian life. Here are 5 scenarios in which it would be inappropriate to appeal to the process outlined in Matthew 18.... Read More

Tuesday's Catch: Biblical Evangelism and More

Appalachian Mountains
 4 Characteristics of Biblical Evangelism 

Lewis Center Director Doug Powe says biblical evangelism is characterized by four key practices — proclamation, community, service, and witness. Focusing on these practices can demystify the concept of evangelism and strengthen a congregation’s evangelistic efforts. Read More

Understanding the Nominally Churched [Podcast]

To reach the nominally churched and to get them more involved in church, you must first understand them. In this episode Thom Rainer and Jonathan Howe discuss who the nominally churched are before they discuss how to reach them in the next episode. Listen Now

6 Important Truths About Blended Families and the Church

As an author and speaker on this subject, and as a child who grew up surrounded by stepfamily dynamics, here are a few things I believe church leaders should keep in mind regarding these families in their congregations. Read More

4 Ways Your Whole Bible Points to Jesus

We should be willing to learn principles of redemptive interpretation that the New Testament writers employed and exemplified. From these principles we learn that the more common approach to understanding the redemptive nature of all biblical texts is to identify how God’s Word predicts, prepares for, reflects, or results from the person and/or work of Christ. Read More

As Churches Are Demolished at Home, Chinese Christians Find Religious Freedom in Kenya

But migrants embracing God in highly Christian Nairobi are often unaware of the atheist Communist Party’s war on religion. Read More

Monday, April 29, 2019

It’s Time to Talk Prayer Book


What?! Not another outrageous post on Anglicans Ablaze!!

By Robin G. Jordan

With the Anglican Church in North America’s Provincial Assembly barely a month away, it’s time to talk Prayer Book. I have prepared a list of questions and answers that I hope will prompt action. I am assuming my ACNA readers by now are acquainted with the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book. (If they aren’t, they need to be.) So here goes!

Is the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book agreeable to the teaching of the Bible? The short answer is no! Here’s why.

  • The Bible teaches that Jesus established the Lord’s Supper not a sacrifice but as a commemoration of a sacrifice. When Jesus offered himself on the cross for the sins of the world, he did once for all time. He does not continue to offer or plead that sacrifice.

  • In Matthew 26:29 Jesus describes as “this fruit of the vine, the contents of the cup which he had just described as “the blood of the New Covenant,” thereby indicating that he had been speaking figuratively and the cup’s contents had undergone no change in substance.

  • In the Bible the Holy Spirit descends upon people, not inanimate objects such as bread and wine or water. When the descent of the Holy Spirit is invoked, his descent is invoked upon people, not inanimate objects.

  • When John the Baptist said “Behold the Lamb of God,” he was looking at Jesus himself and speaking a prophetic utterance. He was not referring to Christ substantively present in the consecrated bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.

  • The miraculous feeding of the five thousand occurred well before the Last Supper and the institution of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus described himself as “the Bread of Life” in the “I Am” discourses in the Gospel of John and goes on to talk about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, he is not talking about his substantive presence in the consecrated bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. He is talking about how he has far greater value than the bread that he miraculously multiplied when he fed the five thousand. He is also talking about the kind of faith that being his disciple requires. Believing in him goes beyond following him because of the miracle that he performed out of a desire for more bread. It requires the spiritual equivalent of chewing him up, swallowing him down, and then digesting him, making him part of oneself.

  • When believers eat the bread and drink the cup, according to Paul in his First Letter to the Corinthians, they proclaim Christ’s death until he comes again. Sharing the bread and cup is a proclamation of the good news, of Christ’s salvific work on the cross. Believers also participate in the benefits of his saving death.

  • In the same letter Paul chastises the Corinthians for taking the Lord’s Supper too lightly and treating it like an ordinary meal, for not waiting for the latecomers and for treating them as if they are not part of the Body of Christ. He urges the Corinthians to take the Lord’s Supper with the seriousness that is due it and examining themselves before sharing the bread and the cup.

  • The Bible does not teach that baptism and the gift of the Holy Spirit always go hand in hand. Some people may receive the Holy Spirit before they are baptized like Paul and Cornelius and his household or after they are baptized like the Samaritans and the Ephesians. Others may not receive the Holy Spirit at all like Simon Magus.

  • The Bible teaches that regeneration is entirely the work of the Holy Spirit.

  • The Acts of the Apostles is not describing a primitive form of confirmation in its account of how the Samaritans and Ephesians received the Holy Spirit. In the case of the Samaritans God was showing the Jews that the New Covenant extended to the despised Samaritans. In the case of the Ephesians God demonstrates that the gift of faith and the gift of the Holy Spirit are tied to each other.

  • Paul is not describing a primitive form of confirmation or ordination in his reference in his Second Letter to Timothy to the gift God gave Timothy when he laid hands on Timothy. He is referring to the special gift that Timothy received through prophecy mentioned in his First Letter to Timothy.

  • The Bible, while it teaches that marriage is an exclusive relationship in which a man and a woman make a lifelong commitment to each other, it does not teach that marriage is a sacrament that confers grace upon the married couple.

  • The Synoptic Gospels and the Epistles of James contains references to the practice of anointing the sick with olive oil. This practice was found throughout the ancient Mediterranean world as well as the ancient Near East. They are not references to the administration of a sacrament but to a very common practice of the times.

  • In the Bible God’s blessing is pronounced upon people, not inanimate objects—bread and wine, water, oil, salt, vestments, or buildings. References to Jesus’ blessing of the bread and the cup at the Last Supper in the Synoptic Gospels are references to Jesus’ giving thanks over the bread and the cup, which the Synoptic Gospels make clear. “The cup which we bless” to which Paul refers in the First Letter to the Corinthians can also be translated as “the cup over which we give thanks.”

  • The Bible does not teach that any special gift or grace necessary for the administration of the sacraments is conveyed by anointing with blessed oil the forehead of a bishop or the hands of a presbyter.

  • The Bible teaches that only the Holy Spirit confers spiritual gifts which are manifestations of the Holy Spirit himself present in the believer.

Does it conform to the principles of doctrine and worship of the Thirty-Nine Articles? The short answer is no! Here’s why.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles recognize only two sacraments ordained by Christ—Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles describe confirmation, absolution, ordination, matrimony, and anointing the sick with oil in part as a false understanding of apostolic practice and in part states of life allowed in Scripture.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles teach that baptism is efficacious only for those who rightly receive the sacrament. It does not tie the effect of the sacrament to a particular time.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles teach that only who rightly, worthily, and with faith receive the bread and the cup of the Lord’s Supper participate in the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice upon the cross.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles reject the belief that Christ is really and substantively present in the consecrated bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles further teach that the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was “not commanded by Christ to be reserved, carried about, lifted up or worshipped.”

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles also teach that those who are wicked or lack a vital faith, while they eat the bread and drink the cup, do not participate in the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice. Therefore only those who have turned from sin in repentance to Jesus in faith should be admitted to the Lord’s Table.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles teach that Jesus, when he died on the cross, made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. The Articles reject the belief that the Lord’s Supper is an extension of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

Does it clearly express the doctrine of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer? Does it respect the liturgical usages of the 1662 Prayer Book? The short answer is no! Here’s why.

  • The proposed book bears a superficial resemblance to the 1662 Prayer Book but it is an entirely different book. The Prayer Book and Liturgical Task Force cannibalized textual material from the 1662 Prayer Book but the task force used this material in a different way from the way that it is used in the 1662 Prayer Book. Consequently this material no longer expresses the doctrine of the 1662 Prayer Book but an entirely different belief or set of beliefs.

  • The Prayer Book and Liturgical Task Force made alterations and additions to the textual material that they cannibalized from the 1662 Prayer Book. These alterations and additions changed the doctrine embodied in this material.

  • The Prayer Book and Liturgy Task Force also used textual material from other sources whose doctrine is not agreeable to the Scriptures or compatible with the doctrine of the 1662 Prayer Book.

  • The Prayer Book and Liturgical Task Force added rubrics that mandate or permit practices that the rubrics of the 1662 Prayer Book do not mandate or permit. The omission of these practices from the 1662 Prayer Book was deliberate. The practices themselves or the doctrine with which they have had a long association conflict with Scripture or are incompatible with Scripture.

  • In the 1662 Communion Service there is no offering of the bread and wine during the offertory or before or after the consecration of the elements. There is no showing of the consecrated elements to the congregation for adoration before the communion.

  • The First Exhortation in the 1662 Communion Service advises those who cannot quieten their own conscience to seek the counsel of a “discreet and learned Minister of God’s Word” and talk with him so that this minister can, using the Scriptures, show them that God forgives repentant sinners and offer them spiritual counsel and advice, thereby enabling them to receive the sacrament with a quiet conscience. This exhortation does not refer to the practices of auricular confession and judicial absolution.

  • As in the 1559 Prayer Book, the Prayer Humble Access in the 1662 Prayer Book serves a bridge between the Sanctus and the Memorial of the Institution of the Lord’s Supper and “a prayer of humble thankfulness and for ‘worthy reception.’” It echoes Isaiah’s response to his vision of God and the song of the angels around God’s throne.

  • The 1662 Communion Service, like the 1559 Communion Service, moves immediately from the Words of Institution to the communicants’ reception of the bread and wine and makes the reception of the elements and not their consecration the  “unique liturgical highpoint” of the service.

  • The 1662 Words of Administration maintain that the communicant feeds on Christ in his heart by faith with thanksgiving.

  • Only after the communicants have received the bread and wine does one find any mention of a sacrifice other than Christ’s sacrifice on the cross in the 1662 Communion Service. The first sacrifice mentioned is the congregation’s “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” and the second is their offering of themselves to “a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice.” Both of these sacrifices are responses to Christ’s sacrifice. In their post-Communion location there is no possibility of the confusion of these two sacrifices with Christ’s sacrifice.

  • The Declaration on Kneeling rejects the belief that Christ is really and substantively present in the consecrated bread and wine. It takes the position that the bread and wine undergo no change in substance. They retain their natural substances. Christ’s body is in heaven and cannot be more than one place at a time.

  • The Thirty-Nine Articles provide the doctrinal standards by which the regeneration language of the 1662 Services of Baptism must be understood. 1662 Services of Baptism charitably assume that the sacrament has been efficacious for those receiving it. All the right conditions for the sacrament to have its intended effect are present or will be at some future time.

  • The 1662 Service of Confirmation charitably assumes that the confirmands have received the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The service provides the confirmands with an opportunity to profess their faith in Jesus Christ, appropriate for themselves the baptismal vows their sponsors made for them when they were unable to answer for themselves, and to receive the prayers of the church for the strengthening of the Holy Spirit to keep this commitment. The bishop lays hands on the confirmands as a gesture of goodwill and concern.

  • In the 1662 Marriage Service the couple exchange their vows in the presence of witnesses. The minister offers prayers for the newly-married couple, pronounces God’s blessing on the couple, and may exhort them in regards to the nature and duties of marriage.

  • The 1662 Visitation of the Sick takes its cue from James 5:15-16 and emphasizes prayer for the sick.

  • The 1662 Communion of the Sick is a shortened form of the Communion Service which a priest may conduct in the home of a sick person. If the sick person is for any reason unable to receive the bread and wine, the rubrics direct the priest to “instruct him that if he do truly repent him of his sins, and stedfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the Cross for him, and shed his Blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefore; he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth.” This particular rubric is an important statement of the 1662 Prayer Book’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper.

  • In the Ordinal annexed to the 1662 Prayer Book candidates for ordination to the diaconate are asked whether they “unfeignedly believe all the canonical scriptures of the Old and New Testament.

  • In the Ordinal annexed to the 1662 Prayer Book the new deacon is given a New Testament and the new priest and new bishop are given a Bible. No prostrations during the singing of the Veni Sanctus Spiritus. No chalice for the priest (with wine in the chalice and a paten with wafer nestled in the chalice). No solemn vesting in blessed liturgical garments. No mitre and crozier. No anointing of the new priest’s hands and the new bishop’s forehead with blessed oil.

Is it well designed for the North American mission field? The short answer is no! Here's why.

  • The rites and services of the proposed book are unnecessarily elaborate and long

  • The proposed book’s rites and services contain numerous superfluous elements that should have been made optional or omitted.

  • The proposed book’s rites and services are short on flexibility and adaptability.

  • The proposed book’s rites and services were designed for the last century, not for this century. They resemble a number of the earlier trial liturgies from the 1960s and 1970s.

  • The proposed book does not contain any alternative patterns of worship like Common Worship's Service of the Word and Common Prayer: Resources for Gospel-Shaped Gatherings's Service of the Word and Prayer which congregations can use when the services of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer,and Holy Communion do not meet their needs.

  • The proposed book’s rites and services were designed for the conventional settings of the cathedral, seminary chapel, and parish church. They are ill-suited to the non-traditional settings in which a large number of ACNA congregations hold their worship gatherings. These settings include private homes, storefronts, gyms, school cafeterias, hotel conference rooms, apartment building community rooms, university lecture halls, dance schools, shared church buildings, and any other space that they are able to rent or use free of charge.

Has the proposed book been authorized for use in the Anglican Church in North America? The short answer is no! Here's why.

  • While the College of Bishops has endorsed the book, the Provincial Council has not adopted a canon authorizing its use and the Provincial Assembly has not approved such a canon.

Why then did the College of Bishops endorse the proposed book?

  • You’ll have to ask the College of Bishops. Don’t expect a straight answer.

What can I do?

  • Urge your diocese’s representatives to the Provincial Council to vote down a canon authorizing the use of the proposed book. Urge your diocese’s delegation to the Provincial Assembly not to ratify such a canon.

  • You can refuse to buy the proposed book.

  • You can refuse to use it.

  • You can return any copies of the proposed book that you may have purchased and demand a refund.

  • You can mount a protest wherever the proposed book is sold—at the Provincial Assembly, at your diocesan council or synod.

  • You can urge your diocesan council or synod to adopt a resolution calling for its withdrawal from use.

  • You can urge your bishop to withdraw his endorsement of the book.

  • You can urge your bishop to ban its use in your diocese.

  • Circulate this article. Post it on your church web page, blog, and Facebook page. Email it to as many people as you think may read it.

If you are really concerned about the current theological environment in the Anglican Church in North America, about the failure of its leaders to uphold authentic historic Anglicanism whose principles are based on the Holy Scriptures and articulated in the Thirty-Nine Articles and the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, these suggestions are the minimum that you can do to turn things around.

Once the 2019 Proposed ACNA Prayer Book is authorized, it will become the ACNA’s official Prayer Book and the province’s standard of doctrine and worship. Its supporters may argue that a lot of time and effort has gone into its preparation but that does not justify its authorization or its use. It is a highly-flawed book in terms of doctrine, practices, and missional usefulness. Despite what its supporters claim, it is not likely to be a gospel-advancing asset for the Anglican Church in North America. Churches on the North American mission field face enough challenges. They do not need a defective Prayer Book added to these challenges.

Image Credit: Christ the King Anglican Church, Edmonton ONT, ANiC

Monday's Catch: Pastor as Player-Couch and More


Fundamentals for Pastoral Ministry

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Monday is for Missiology: What is the Missional Church?-- a New Series

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Saturday, April 27, 2019

Church Planting Mistakes and Blunders—Part 1


By Robin G. Jordan

In this article series I propose to take a look at a number of common mistakes and blunders that those planting Anglican churches in North America are apt to make. These mistakes and blunders come from the various stages of a church plant and not one particular stage. Some were made at the level of the judicatory (i.e., diocese); others were made at the local level.

A new church usually takes about five years to establish itself, depending upon the community and other factors. This is not a hard and fast rule. Some new churches take longer.

Among the possible indicators that a new church has established itself, that it is going to be around for a while and have an impact upon the community, are the following:

1. It has a working discipleship process through which new believers are formed as disciples and disciples are brought to full development.

2. It has established a network of relationships with members of the community and using this relationship network to reach and engage the unchurched. It is regularly adding new people to this network and expanding the base of the congregation.

3. It has a working leadership pipeline and is multiplying, training, developing, and utilizing new leaders. The leadership circle is expanding. It is not static or contracting. Newcomers are able to move into positions of leadership within a reasonable amount of time.

4. It has a growing “footprint.” It has connected with the community in a number of ways and is increasing these connections at frequent and regular intervals. It is having a discernible impact upon the community. If it were to disappear suddenly, its presence in the community would be missed by a wide segment of the community’s population.

5. It is financially self-sustaining. It no longer needs to rely on subsidies from the judicatory or financial support from other sources. It is able to meet its budget and to have a budget surplus. It enjoys a measure of success in raising funds for special projects from contributors within the congregation and donors outside the congregation. Giving is widely distributed throughout the congregation and not confined to a small number of contributors. A substantial number of the members of the congregation tithes or gives proportionally to their income.

6. It has an expanding pool of volunteers and is not reliant on the same group of volunteers.

7. Depending upon the church model that is adopted is regularly conducting services of public worship on Sundays and other times. The church model and the community will determine the frequency of these gatherings and the day and time of the gatherings. In a cell group church, for example, the cell groups might devote a portion of their weekly meeting to worship and then meet together monthly for large group worship. This gathering might be scheduled on a day and time when most cell group members and a sizable number of ministry target group members can attend. More churches are moving away from a traditional Sunday schedule of worship services to having their gatherings on days and times that the population segment which they are targeting can attend. The New Testament tell us that the disciples gathered on other days beside the first day of the week. While it would become customary to gather on Sundays in the early Church, Sunday gatherings are not sacrosanct. Having meetings on Sundays is not essential to our salvation.

This list of possible indicators is not exhaustive.

Readers may note that I have left two possible indicators off this list. While constructing or purchasing its own building was at one time considered an indicator that a new church had established itself, I do not believe that this was a reliable indicator even in the past. Some new churches had the resources to construct or purchase a building at an early stage in the plant but as we shall see the decision to construct or purchase a building proved a bad one and the building became a liability for the new church. In a number of cases the new church did not recognize how much of a liability until later in the life of the church.

Having a full-time vocational pastor was also at one time considered an indicator that a new church had established itself. This may have been true in the past but it is not necessarily true today. A growing number of churches have bi-vocational pastors. With a bi-vocational pastor a new church can meet the criteria that I have listed above. While being bi-vocational has its challenges, it also has its advantages. Among these advantages is that it puts the pastor in the middle of culture on a regular basis and keeps him from becoming missionally stale. For a list of further advantages of bi-vocational pastors, see “Eight Reasons Why Some Full-time Pastors and Staff Should Go Bivocational.”

Most of the mistakes and blunders that I identify in this article series occurred in the critical first five years of a new church. Some would have a lasting impact upon the church. As well as looking at each mistake and blunder, I will also look at the impact that it could have had as the impact that it did have. I see no point of drawing attention to a mistake or blunder without examining how it can affect a church. The purpose of this article is help sponsoring churches or judicatories, church planters, and church planting teams avoid making similar mistakes and blunders.

Mistake #1. Failing to learn as much as possible about the community or neighborhood before planting new church there.

This is such an avoidable mistake but it is made over and over again. If a new church is going to be a good fit with a community or neighborhood, those planting the church need to become experts on the community or neighborhood. Breakaway groups that have left an existing church are particularly apt to make this mistake. They may not appreciate the importance of becoming experts on a community or neighborhood to the success of a church plant or they may assume erroneously that they already know the community or neighborhood.

Breakaway groups may, like the small Anglican church with which I am presently involved, locate their church in a community or neighborhood because they can rent a meeting place in the community or neighborhood or purchase a vacant church building. They may not explore whether the church that they have started will be a good fit with the community or neighborhood or consider the community or neighborhood in determining the shape that their church will take. They may later on blame the community or neighborhood for the failure of the church to thrive but the fault is really their own. They did not do the necessary preliminary information gathering which would have given them a good idea whether the church that they had started would flourish in the community or neighborhood where they located it.

Breakaway groups are likely to make this mistake because they have no sense of being the church on mission and lack good leadership. In the Episcopal Church mission has been redefined as social justice advocacy and ministry to the poor and needy. Those who lead them to split off from an existing church may not have been the right people to lead them in planting a new church. Without a strong missionary mindset and knowledgeable leaders or leaders willing to learn they are prone to overlook basic steps in church planting. For this reason I believe that church networks with a good deal of church planting experience under their belts should take the initiative, link up with breakaway groups, and guide them through the church planting process. They should not be left to muddle along on their own. A church network should be more than a licensing and placement agency for clergy

Mistake #2. Putting the wrong person in pastoral charge of the new church.

This is another very common mistake. In some cases a trained, experienced church planter who started a new church will be its first pastor. Once he is satisfied that the church has gotten off to a good start, he may move on to plant another new church. In other cases, he may remain and become its long term pastor. Church planters who do not have much experience or a lot of training but who have successfully launched a healthy church will follow the same pattern. Having birthed a healthy church, they may feel confident enough to try their hand at launching another healthy church. They may conclude that is the ministry which God has called them. They may, on the other hand, want to see the church that they have birthed grow to maturity. They may conclude that God is leading them to stay on as the new church’s pastor.

Just as there were pioneers and settlers in the United States and Canada in the early days, there are pioneers and settlers in church planting. Sometime a pioneer will become a settler and put down roots. Other times, a pioneer may try the settling for a while and then go back to pioneering. They will get itchy feet. They want to be a part of something new again. They want to be on the cutting edge of mission. For them pioneering a new church may be the most fruitful season of their ministry. If they settle too long, they stagnate.

Some people, on the other hand, are not cut out to pioneer a new church, much less lead one, but due to a variety of circumstances they may be put in pastoral charge of a new church. Too often judicatories will take a hit or miss approach to clergy deployment. They will appoint a pastor to a new church, not because he is the best person for the job but because he happens to be available at the time. He may not be a good match with the congregation. In some cases he may not be a good match with the community. He may lack the skills and experience to pastor a new church and even worse he may show little or no inclination to acquire them.

For example, the deacon who became the vicar of the Mandeville Mission was appointed to that post because he was a transitional deacon and needed a cure of souls in order to be ordained a priest. Before he was sent to seminary and ordained a deacon, he had served as a lay reader at a church that, while it was located in a growing community, was not experiencing any growth.

In the 1980s an Episcopal church located in a growing community could expect to experience some growth. The church in question suffered from what may be described as the invisible church syndrome. It was at a hard-to-find location. It had no signs at main intersections giving directions to the church. It had no ad in the Yellow Pages. It did not purchase newspaper or Welcome Wagon ads or radio spot ads from the local radio stations or otherwise try to reach newcomers to the community. Its rector did not contribute articles to the local newspapers.

Except for a brief internship at a new mission for a semester while at seminary, the vicar had no prior experience of ministering in a new church. Most of his ideas on worship, ministry, mission, and the like came from the time that he was a lay reader at the aforementioned church and the time that he was deacon at an urban parish in New Orleans. He showed no interest in expanding his skills and knowledge in critical areas such as church growth, conflict management, evangelism, leadership development, missiology, and small group ministry. He had concluded that he had learned all that he needed to know at seminary.

His weaknesses in these areas, however, did not become problematic until the church became a parish and he became its rector. The church grew to the point where it outgrew his ability to lead it. His personal growth did not keep pace with the church’s growth. The result was a serious church split which cost a growing church more than a third of its member household and from which it has never recovered. The church split was not entirely his fault. Rather than accept the recommendations of the consultant that the church had hired at the bishop’s behest, the vestry tried to oust him. The vestry was unsuccessful and resigned. The church split was the fallout from the vestry’s resignation. He would retain his position as the rector of the church but in the process would pass up an opportunity to have grown as a pastor. Five years after the split he would resign, leaving behind him a church that was heavily in debt and no longer able to support itself.

While a judicatory may not be able to foresee the outcome of a placement that far ahead, it can take steps to ensure that the person which it is placing in pastoral charge of a new church is competent to lead it during its first five years, that he has the necessary skills and experience. Where skills are lacking, it can provide him with training and development opportunities. Where experience is lacking, it can provide him with a mentor who has experience in leading a new church during those critical years. This will help to ensure that the person pastoring the new church and the new church itself will both get off to a good start.

A judicatory can check regularly on the progress of a new church. It may be able to help the pastor of the new church solve problems before they get out of hand.

How the small Anglican church with which I am presently involved acquired its first pastor and his successor illustrates the kinds of circumstances that may result in the wrong person taking pastoral charge of a new church. The first pastor of the church was the leader of the breakaway group that formed the church. The group decided to affiliate with the Episcopal Missionary Church that had its headquarters in the neighboring state of Tennessee, The leader of the group would read for holy orders in that jurisdiction and would be ordained a deacon and then a priest. In enlisting new members for the congregation, he would focus on recruiting disaffected Episcopalians like the existing members of the congregation. As far as I have been able to ascertain, he confined his recruiting efforts to this very tiny population segment. He may not have had the skills or experience to evangelize the area’s unchurched population or he may simply have not had any interest in evangelizing that population.

A new church needs a pastor who will encourage it to be outward-looking and who can lead it in evangelism. From what I gather, he was not the right person for that task. Unfortunately he would set the pattern for the new church.

The breakaway group would experience a major split during its second year over leadership. The group’s leader who by this time had been ordained a priest resigned. He accepted the call to a small Anglican church out west.

The new church requested the assistance of the Episcopal Missionary Church in finding a new pastor for the church. The jurisdiction, however, had no one who was able to take pastoral charge of the church.

The church then approached a retired priest about becoming the pastor of the church. He lived in Mayfield, a 30 to 45 minute drive from Benton .The retired priest agreed on the condition that the church change its affiliation to the Anglican Province of Christ the King with which he was affiliated. The priest in question would serve as the church’s pastor for six years. During that time the church would switch jurisdictions again when the Anglican Province of Christ the King and the Anglican Church of America merged. When the ACA split over the Anglican Ordinariate, he wanted to join the Roman Catholic Church, bringing the congregation with him. While some members of the congregation were receptive to the idea; others were not. He subsequently resigned. During the time that he was pastor of the church, the average Sunday attendance was never larger than twenty-five people. At the times I visited the church, I was typically the only visitor.

After he left, the church would switch back to its original jurisdiction. This time it was able to find a priest to take pastoral charge of the church. From what I gather, he may have initiated several attempts at outreach to the community but these attempts were unsuccessful. The congregation had little understanding of what he was hoping to accomplish and little enthusiasm for what it was asked to do. He would move on after six months.

One of the shortcomings of the Continuing Anglican jurisdictions is that they have not grasped the importance of training and developing their clergy and lay readers in church planting, evangelism, and related fields. Some jurisdictions have recognized this deficit and are working to bring their clergy and lay readers up to speed so they have all the latest information in these fields and are able to do a better job of planting churches, leading congregations in evangelism, and so on. Others acknowledge the existence of the deficit but simply do not have resources to do anything about it. One possible solution is for several jurisdictions to pool their resources and make use of free online seminars and workshops. They might invite those who are knowledgeable and experienced in these fields in other denominations to conduct these seminars and workshops. If at all possible they should not leave the training and development of clergy and lay readers in these fields to chance.

Mistake #3. Neglecting to equip the congregation for evangelism.

This is a huge mistake but it also a very common one. It is comparable to sending soldiers into battle without weapons and ammunition, much less training on the loading and firing of weapons. One of the main reasons that the equipping of the congregation for evangelism is neglected is that the pastor himself has not been equipped for evangelism. He cannot pass on to others something about which he has little knowledge and in which he has even less experience. Equipping a congregation for evangelism  is a must in a new church. It is essential to its fulfillment of its principal mission which is to spread the gospel, to make disciples, to baptize them, and to instruct them in what Christ himself commanded. The pastor’s role is not only as an equipper but also as an example, or model. If the new church is to be evangelistic, he must take the lead. There is little point to planting a new church if it is not going to reach out to the spiritually lost and share with them the good news. If a new church does not do that from the very beginning, the church will have a difficult time doing it later on.

When I began preaching about getting to know unchurched people, and telling them about Jesus, as well as inviting people to church, the response in the pews was looks of dismay and nervous fidgeting. It must have touched a sensitive area because two members of the congregation began to boycott my sermons. I did not preach every Sunday and they only missed the Sundays when I preached. I asked them what was troubling them. One refused to talk about it. The other did not give me a straight answer. I was not able to work through this problem and was forced to discontinue preaching.

Christians have a lot of misconceptions about evangelism—who is primarily responsible for evangelizing the spiritually lost and discipling new believers, what these closely related tasks involve, and that sort of thing. Overcoming these misconceptions is the first step in training a Christian to evangelize the spiritually lost and to disciple new believers. Providing basic training in these two inseparable tasks should be a part of the development of the core group or nucleus of the new congregation before its first service of public worship is launched. It also should be ongoing, forming an essential part of the new church’s discipleship process. A primary objective of that process should be form new believers into disciples who are capable of replicating themselves.

Some readers may disagree with this analysis but a major reason that Continuing Anglican churches are declining and ACNA church plants are failing is that they are seen as dispensaries of the sacraments, rather than outposts of the Kingdom on the North American mission field. In the 1980s I would have used the analogy of a full service gas station but such gas stations are a rarity these days. In the 1980s when you drove into a full service gas station, an attendant would fill your car with gasoline, take your payment, return your change, give you a receipt, and send you on your way. He also might clean your window and check the air pressure of your tires. I would have compared the priest to the attendant, the sacraments to the gas pump, and the sacramental grace to the gasoline.

Nowadays gas stations are self-service. You must fill up your own car. There is a useful analogy here too. One of the signs of a mature disciple is that he (or she) is a self-feeder. He is capable feeding himself from God’s Word. He no longer needs to be spoon fed like a baby. In other words, he has learned how to pump gas for himself and does not have to rely on someone to do it for him. It is through his Word that God spiritually nourishes us and renews and transforms us.

Churches that overemphasize the importance of the sacraments and which treat as sacraments rites that are not means of grace, however, are encouraging their congregations to remain immature believers. Immature believers do not see themselves as those who serve but rather as those who are served. They are, as Christians, not going fill their proper role as evangelizers and disciplers. Clergy who primarily see themselves as dispensers of sacramental grace are not going to fill their proper role as equippers and exemplars.

In my next article I will take a look at three more church planting mistakes or blunders.

Image Credit: Christ Our Light Anglican Church,Big Rock IL/Greenhouse Movement

Practical Preaching Advice for Pastors and Lay Preachers #47


4 Reasons Why I Appreciate Expository Preaching

If you’re a pastor, it’s unlikely the majority of your church members have taken a hermeneutics class. But it’s actually the responsibility of the local church to equip the saints for the work of the ministry in the first place. And that includes teaching them how to use the Scriptures rightly. Read More

8 Tools To Explain A Biblical Passage Clearly

Why not simply read a bit of Bible and then say what you want to say, making the odd vague connection? This passes for preaching in many places. Read More

4 Deadly Dangers In Shortcutting Quality Exegesis

Shortcuts in exegesis result in a passage idea that does not carry the true content--nor the character--of the passage on which we claim to be preaching. Read More

Grace Is A Divine Scandal, And That's How You Should Preach It

Grace can be abused, grace can be played the fool, grace can be wasted--but grace doesn't care. Grace is the divine scandal. Read More

Preachers in Sneakers Does it really matter if preachers wear hip clothes or live expensive lifestyles? Read More

Saturday Lagniappe:Easter Sunday Follow-Up and More


Following Up with Easter Sunday Guests

If we believe that hospitality is a catalyst and our end goal is to point people toward the gospel, then we must keep in mind that in most cases, a repeat visit (and sometimes multiple visits) will be necessary before the gospel starts to make sense to the guests of our churches. Read More

10 BIG Things Jesus Said That We Often Forget

I apologize for the title. There are wonderful churches filled with faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who are getting these things right; I don’t mean to imply otherwise. But that does not negate the fact that untold thousands of churches still exist primarily for themselves, have no vision outside their doors and no compassion for anyone knocking on those doors. Read More

Tackle Community Problems for Community Outreach

Why do people working together have the potential to be and do more than they could as individuals? Here are three reasons.... Read More

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Friday, April 26, 2019

Anglicans Ablaze Takes a Look at Four Church Planting Models


By Robin G. Jordan

Since the 1980s I have been involved in a number of church plants at various stages in the life of the new congregation. One I was involved from the planning stage on. The others I became involved fairly early in their life. Since the 1980s I have also attended seminars and workshops as well as done extensive reading in the literature on church planting. While I do not claim to be an expert in the field, I do believe that I have acquired valuable information that might benefit others who are planning a church plant or in the midst of planting a new church.

Just as the North American mission field has changed over the past five decades so has church planting. What worked in the 1980s may not work today. At the same time the underlying principles may still prove useful. We can also learn from the mistakes that were made in the past, as well those being made in the present day.

In this article I am going to look at four different models of church planting with which I have some familiarity and a number of advantages and disadvantages associated with these models.

The first model is the “hiving off” model. This model has several variations. One variation is the described on the Reformed Church in America’s Church Mutiplication website:
A large congregation (300 or more members) hires a planter for about nine months. The planter gathers a group from within the congregation with which to plant a new church, usually in the same area. Groups range from 30 to more than 200 people.
A second variation is that the judicatory (conference diocese, district, synod, etc.) hires a church planter who gathers a group from the congregations of churches of the same denomination in a particular area. With this group the planter starts a new church. This was the method that was used to plant North Cross United Methodist Church in Madisonville, Louisiana in the first decade of this century. The bishop of the Louisiana's UMC Conference recruited the youth pastor of a church in Baton Rouge, who enjoyed a good reputation as a preacher, to plant a new UMC church in a growing area of western St. Tammany Parish.

A third variation is the one which was used to plant St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Mandeville, Louisiana in the late 1980s. The new church was a joint initiative of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and Christ Episcopal Church in Covington, Louisiana. The rector of Christ Church had some experience in pioneering a new congregation. He gathered a group from within Christ Church’s congregation. The new congregation was organized as a satellite congregation of Christ Church at a public interest meeting to which members of the community in Mandeville who were interested in pioneering a new church were invited to attend. The new congregation began with a nucleus of 40 odd people. The rector and assistant rector of Christ Church and the canon for missions of the Diocese took turns officiating at its services. Within 6 months the new congregation had applied to the Diocese for recognition as a mission of the Diocese. A vicar was appointed. Within a decade St. Michael’s had become a self-supporting parish.

A fourth variation is also a variation of the multsite approach to church planting. The RCA’s Church Multiplication website offers the following description of the multisite approach.
A parent church starts a congregation at a new location in the same region. It remains under the leadership of the parent church long-term.
Rather than starting anew congregation from scratch the parent church may “hive off” a part of the congregation whose members live in the community where the second campus is to be located and use them as the nucleus of the new congregation. This is the approach that the Journey Church in Murray, Kentucky took when it opened a second campus in Benton, a community eighteen miles to the north of Murray and from which it drew a part of its congregation. A number of attendees of the Journey Church from Benton had expressed an interest in a second campus in Benton, principally because, while they really liked the Journey Church, the drive from Benton to Murray often took 30 minutes or more due to the traffic lights, poor weather, and hazardous driving conditions.

The “hiving off” method has a number of advantages and disadvantages. The RCA’s Church Multiplication website lists these advantages:
  • Sizable starter congregation
  • Ninety-seven percent success rate
  • Plant becomes independent quickly—often in 18 months or less
  • Strong ties between parent and plant.
How quickly the plant becomes independent will depend upon the size of the starter congregation and its composition. Small starter congregations with few substantial givers will require support longer than large starter congregations with many substantial givers.

The Mandeville Mission received no financial support from Christ Church. The money used to rent facilities for its service came from the Bishop’s Ventures in Mission Fund. Once the new congregation became a mission of the Diocese, the support of the Diocese was reduced incrementally every year and the mission was required to take on a larger share of its budget. This was done to encourage the mission to become self-supporting as quickly as possible.

What the RCA's Church Multiplication website lists as a disadvantage—the loss of members from the parent church, I have not found to be a disadvantage. It might more accurately be described as a mistaken belief. The parent church will initially lose some members. But if the parent church is healthy church, it will quickly replace these members. Christ Church enjoyed a growth spurt after it launched the Mandeville Mission. It would eventually go from two services on Sunday mornings to three. Having a new church within its shadow would provide a stimulus for further growth.

The two churches were also quite different. Christ Church had a very formal traditional style of worship while St. Michael’s had a more relaxed contemporary style of worship. While both churches used an eclectic blend of traditional and contemporary worship music, St. Michael’s would use a larger selection of contemporary worship songs. Uplifted hands stood out at Christ Church but not at St. Michael’s. St. Michael’s today bears no resemblance to St. Michael’s during its first decade of existence.

The chief disadvantage of the “hiving off” method is that the group which is used to form the starter congregation will have pre-conceived idea of how church should be done. There will be pressure from within this group to put its preferences first. There is a very real danger of ecclesial praxis being given priority over missional engagement. There will also be a tendency to reach out to people like the group rather than the wider unchurched or loosely-churched population. It is more likely to grow by transfers than conversions.

Whoever gathers the group from within the congregation of the parent church will need to recruit individual and families who are willing to leave their preferences behind at the parent church and to mix with people who are different from themselves—people who do not think like they do or share their values. Too often the sole criterion that will be used in gathering the group is that its members live in the neighborhood or community in which the new church is to be planted.

The church planter will need to do training and development with the group so that everyone is on the same page as to what is to be the vision, core beliefs, and values of the new church. The planter will need to frequently remind the group of the new church’s vision, core beliefs, and values. The planter will also need to be prepared to deal with any attempts to hijack its vision, core beliefs, and values.

The planter will need to have some kind of screening process for vetting potential members of the group in regard to their suitability as church pioneers. Those whom the rector of Christ Church asked to form the nucleus of the Mandeville Mission, he personally screened for their commitment to the mission of the Church and the resources, skills and spiritual gifts that they could offer the new congregation. A church leader can do untold damage to a plant if he sees the starter congregation as a dumping ground for those he considers to be undesirables in the parent church. Unfortunately some church leaders do think this way. They are not seriously committed to the success of the plant.

The rector of Christ Church was upfront from the beginning that the new congregation was not going to be a chapel of ease for members of Christ Church living in Mandeville. As he explained to the congregation of Christ Church, Mandeville had once had an Episcopal church of its own before the Civil War. However, the Civil War and the yellow fever epidemics that followed it had decimated the congregations of All Souls in Mandeville and Christ Church. The remnants of the two congregations had merged into a single congregation which enabled Christ Church not only to survive the vicissitudes of the post-Civil War era but also to flourish in the ensuing years. Christ Church was sending out members of its congregation to plant a new church in Mandeville part in repayment for the sacrifice the congregation of All Souls made in the nineteenth century and part in order to meet the needs of a growing community. As he explained to me, he also saw the establishment of the new church in Mandeville as a way of reinvigorating Christ Church. It would have that effect.

The second method of planting a new church with which I am familiar is a “parachute drop.” In a “parachute drop” a sponsoring church, denomination, or parachurch organization sends a full-time planter into a new community to start a new church from scratch. The church planter in question was Lane Corley, a young pastor from Fort Worth, Texas, whom the North Shore Baptist Association hired to plant a new church in Waldheim, Louisiana. You can read his own account of how he planted Hope Church of Waldheim on his own blog in the post, “Overheard, as a North American Church Planter.” I also recommend his post, “Assessing the Need for New Churches.”

What Lane does not tell you in his account of how he planted Hope Church is that he was a bi-vocational church planter. He cleaned office buildings at night and got to know the community and its people during the day. He became a volunteer fire department chaplain. He hung out wherever people in the target area gathered. He and wife went from door to door and conducted a community needs survey. This enabled them not only to meet the area’s residents but also to identify what the area's residents thought were the area’s most pressing needs, needs that a new church might meet. He started a Bible study group and then multiplied that group. He recruited students from the New Orleans Baptist Seminary to assist him in the new work. They included an African student and his family.

Lane's original plan was to establish a network of small groups before holding Hope Church first service of public worship—in other words, to launch large, following the Purpose-Driven approach. However, the North Shore Baptist Association did not fully understand that plan and pressured him to launch earlier than he planned. He tells the rest of the story in his post.

I became involved in Hope Church while it was still using the fire station bay for its worship gatherings. Lane would baptize my oldest grandnephew when he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. The RCA’s Church Multiplication website lists these advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages:
  • Can plant anywhere
  • Your ministry reaches new areas
Disadvantages:
  • Costs up to $100,000 yearly in urban contexts
  • Twenty-five to fifty percent success rate
  • Need a motivated and gifted leader (4.2 or higher on Ridley scale)
Hope Church of Waldheim was not my first exposure to this method of church planting. I was also involved in an unsuccessful AMiA parachute drop church plant in 2002. I learned a number of things from the failure of this plant.

The planter needs to have funding for more than six months. I would say that he may need funding for three years at least. Whether a church sponsors the plant or the planter raises his own funds, they must plan for the long haul. Starting a new church from scratch takes time. While in a few rare cases it may be accomplished in a few months, such cases are not the norm. The planter needs to be prepared for a long hard slog. He will face all kinds of discouragement.

The planter needs to focus on the unchurched and loosely-churched people in the target community. If he is planting an Anglican church, he may attract well-meaning disaffected Episcopalians from outside of the community. They may be new to the community or have a limited social relationship network in the community. They may be socially-isolated. None of the people in these categories make good additions to the core group or nucleus of a new congregation.

The early stages of a “parachute drop” involve establishing and building relationships with people in the target community, particularly those who have an extensive social relationship network in the community. A planter meets people through people. The planter needs in the nucleus of the new congregation people who have these kinds of relationship networks as well as people who are willing to meet people different from themselves, and form relationships with these people.

A successful new church plant is built on an expanding web of relationships. This web of relationships serves as a conduit for the good news which is passed on from one person to the next. Those who come to faith are discipled. Those who have not reached the stage where they are ready to accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord are prayed for, loved, and ministered to.

In a way it is like caring for house plants and garden plants. Depending on what kind of plants they are, they need plant food, watering, and sunlight. They all need tender loving care. Some we may see bloom. Others may bloom in someone else’s care. Our job is to tend the plants so that they have a good chance to grow and bloom. Whether they do is in God’s hands. God does things in his time and not ours. This truth, however, does not relieve us of the responsibility of doing all that we can in caring for the plants.

Disaffected Episcopalians also do not make good church pioneers. For one thing they are apt to have rather fixed ideas about “doing church.” They also come from a denomination which has embraced the post-modern, post-Christian cultural norm that religion is a matter of private conscience and talking about religious beliefs infringes upon an individual’s privacy and has generally discouraged its members from sharing their faith with others and in which very few churches, even conservative ones, encouraged their congregations to do so. They have a built-in set of inhibitions about telling people about Jesus. Despite the emphasis upon inclusivisim in the Episcopal Church, Episcopalians tend to be uneasy around people who are not in the same ethnic, racial, and social economic group as they are. Conservative Episcopalians are even more tribal.

A third method of church planting with which I have some familiarity is the church split. The RCA’s Church Multiplication website provides following description of this method.
Disagreements lead a group from within a congregation to split off and form their own church. This is not ideal, but it happens.
The same website lists one advantage and three disadvantages to church splits.

In the 1970s, the 1990s, and the opening decade of the twenty-first century a number of groups split off from an Episcopal congregation and formed their own church. A number of these churches would split again over theological differences and leadership. They would switch back and forth between jurisdictions. The jurisdictions themselves merged and split. The result was a nimiety of small weak congregations, each which served as a temporary safe haven for a particular group of disaffected Episcopalians.

I say “temporary” because these churches were planted for such a group and not for the community which surrounded them. As this group shrank, the church planted for the group would inevitably decline to the point of closure. One might describe them as disposable churches, an expression of North America’s throw-away culture with its emphasis upon consumerism. A few churches have made the transition to churches for the community and experienced a new lease on life. Most have not.

At issue is not whether the groups that broke with the Episcopal Church had legitimate reasons for severing their relationship with that denomination but rather the form that the churches they planted would take. As at least one Continuing Anglican leader has belatedly acknowledged that a major shortcoming of the Continuum was that its churches did not give sufficient emphasis to evangelism. But I do not see how they could. Reaching the spiritually lost was not the reason for which they were created. Catering to the needs of a disaffected element of the Episcopal Church or a Continuing Anglican jurisdiction was. Evangelism was not written into the program. Having a traditional form of worship and an all male priesthood was. That is why these churches were formed and that is why they are dying. It is too late to write evangelism into the program.

The same thing is happening to the churches that were formed in the 1990s and this century’s opening decade. The reason for their creation may have changed. But unless evangelism was written into their program, they are not going to thrive. They may struggle to survive for a few more years. But they will eventually be forced to close their doors.

Readers may not be familiar with chronic wasting disease (CWD) that is affecting the wild deer population in parts of North America. It is a prion disease like “mad cow’s disease,” or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but which affects cervids, members of the deer family, and humans. Deer hunters are being warned to have the deer that they shoot tested for CWD. It turns the deer into zombies who stagger around, slowly wasting away until they die. The condition of these churches is similar to that of the deer infected with this disease. The deer do not recover from the disease. It is invariably fatal.

These churches, however, can do one thing that the dying deer cannot. They can leave a legacy of ministry behind them. The RCA’s Church Multiplication website describes this method of church planting as “Fresh Start.”A church can make a decision to close and can arrange to have a new congregation moves into its building after it closes. This is the best way that a church can advance the cause of the gospel when revitalizing the congregation is not a realistic possibility.

I am acquainted with one instance of a healthy church emerging from a church split. This church, however, was not launched until almost a year after the split occurred. The cause of the split was a disagreement over the leadership and long-term goals of the church that experienced the split. It was not related to developments in the Episcopal Church. The charismatic element in the group that split from the congregation wanted to plant a new church but the bishop withheld his permission out of fear that it would further weaken the ministry of the church which had experienced the split. He changed his mind when the AMiA announced that it was planting a new church in the community. He permitted the launch of the new church to counter the AMiA’s church planting efforts. The plant, while it enjoyed the support of the bishop, did not enjoy the support of the local deanery. A team of clergy from the bishop’s former deanery preached and officiated at its worship gatherings. A Continuing Anglican priest, later bishop also preached and officiated at these gatherings.

The new congregation would grow rapidly and was enjoying a measure of success in reaching the area’s unchurched population when the events of 2003 devastated the diocese. It became a shadow of its former self and eventually disbanded. A number of the people who were involved in the plant would migrate to the Anglican Church in North America following its disbandment.

I was involved in the plant during its early stages, primarily as an observer since I was also involved in the AMiA plant. It did attract a number of people who otherwise might have become involved in the AMiA plant. The AMiA was an unknown quantity for them. They also had not reached the point where they had given up on the Episcopal Church. Sometimes clergy and congregations must learn the hard way that a denomination is not friendly to what they believe and practice.

The fourth method of planting churches with which I am familiar has been described as the Purpose-Driven approach. Brandon Cox summarizes this approach in his blog post, “5 Essential Ingredients for Planting Purpose Driven Churches.”
You can launch large, with momentum, which involves a timeline of six to twelve months and a series of steps leading toward a launch with as many people involved as possible. Ron Sylvia literally wrote the book on this with Planting Churches on Purpose.
The Journey Church here in Murray, Kentucky launched large. Todd Gray tells a part of the back story to the planting of the Journey Church in his Western Recorder article,  “REACHing Kentucky: Journey Church started on Murray State Campus with boost from Benton Baptists.” As Matt Johnson, founding pastor of the Journey Church, tells the story, the Journey Church began as an idea that he and his former college roommate Jarod Martin and a group of their friends who were students at Murray State University were tossing around about starting a church on the campus of the university. Matt and Jarod were both graduates of Murray State University. They had shared a room at the Baptist Campus Ministry building. They would form a launch team, secured the use of the ballroom of the Curris Center for their first worship service of worship, and then used a variety of methods to gather a crowd for that service—direct mailings, word of mouth, door to door, and so on. They discovered that door to door did not work well in Murray.

After the initial service they focused upon developing the new church by discipling the crowd into a core through the church’s Sunday gatherings, ministry teams, and small groups. For an explanation of crowd-to-core growth, see Daniel Morgan’s Overview of Purpose Driven Church Planting. I became involved with the Journey Church about ten months after the church was launched. While I would, with Matt’s encouragement, become involved in a preaching ministry at a small Anglican church in Benton a little over two years ago, I still participate in one of the Journey Church’s small groups.

During the almost ten years I was more actively involved in the Journey Church, I identified two other influences that were shaping the thinking of the church’s leadership team. These influences are Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger’s Simple Church: Returning to God's Process for Making Disciples and Andy Stanley’s books. The church also uses a number of resources that Northpoint Community Church has developed.

During the same time period I noticed a shift in focus away from Murray’s college student and young adult population to the larger community, in particularly parents with young or teen age children. The Journey Church was forced to change its venue because it had run out of space for its burgeoning children’s ministry. This occurred around the same time I embarked on the preaching ministry at the Anglican Church in Benton.

The Journey Church is an attractional church. The accessible location, the semi-professional rock-concert style worship band, the contemporary Christian and praise and worship music, Matt’s preaching, the relaxed informal atmosphere, the provision of free breakfast, and the involvement of students in various leadership and ministry positions initially attracted a sizable number of Murray State University students. However, student attendance and participation would taper off as one generation of students graduated from Murray State University and new generation of students enrolled in the university. The Journey Church subsequently became more community-focused.

There are indications that students now enrolling in the university would be more responsive to a missional approach. They are not going to get up on Sunday morning to hear a great band and Matt's preaching. However, they are willing to make time for community service projects, fund raisers, and the like if it is for a cause about which they are passionate.

The Journey Church has entered a new phase in its life as a church. It is raising the funds to purchase a 20 acre site on which it plans to build a conference center, which will also double as a worship center. With the construction of that facility it will be moving off the campus of Murray State University. It will be leaving its days of being a campus church behind it and will be taking the final step in its transition from being a campus church to a community church.

The advantage of the Purpose-Driven approach is that it is focused. Churches that launch large grow more quickly than churches that start small. At the same time churches that are launched with this approach also tend to become attractional churches. As attractional churches they can become consumer-driven. This raises questions about how effective they are at making disciples.

A disturbing trend that I have noticed in attractional churches that are influenced by Andey Stanley’s writings is the tendency to deemphasize the place of the Bible in the life of a disciple. Stanley appears to see the Bible as a barrier, or obstacle, to reaching the unchurched with the gospel and therefore seeks to reduce that barrier, or obstacle, by downplaying its importance to faith in Jesus Christ. It is argued that the early Christians did not have the Bible. This claim ignores the fact that early Christians had the Jewish Bible—the Old Testament. A number of Paul’s letters were also circulating among the churches. This view is causing confusion in the minds of some believers and has, in some cases, led them to embrace the views of writers like Rob Bell and Brian McLaren who treat the Bible as collection of writings that embody human reflections upon the nature of God and his relationship with humankind and which are not divinely-inspired in the sense that God influenced the human authors of the Bible to write what they did. It is effectively undercutting the authority of the Bible in matters of faith and practice. It may be too early to say how this trend may impact evangelical Christians in North America but in a population segment that has high levels of biblical and theological illiteracy is is bound to have an impact.

These four methods of church planting are the ones with which I am the most familiar. In an upcoming article I plan to look at a number of common mistakes that those planting new Anglican churches have made and how these mistakes might be avoided. A number of the same mistakes are also made by those launching non-Anglican churches. It is my belief that Anglicans and non-Anglicans can learn from each others’ mistakes. I am hoping that this upcoming article will prove helpful to both Anglicans and non-Anglicans.

Image Credit: Rogers Park Anglican Church/Greenhouse Movement

How to Move Away from an Attractional Church Model


Every church wants to grow and thrive. But attractional churches focus on making Christianity as attractive as possible, sometimes to the detriment of the gospel they are supposed to proclaim.

Jared Wilson—managing editor of Midwestern Seminary’s For the Church, and director of the Pastoral Training Center at Liberty Baptist Church in Kansas City, Missouri—offers an insightful critique of the attractional church model in his new book, The Gospel-Driven Church: Uniting Church Growth Dreams with the Metrics of Grace. He writes as an attractional church insider and outsider, having spent years in both spheres. Read More

Also See:
The Gospel-Driven Church

Photo by John Price on Unsplash

When Is the First Time We See a New Testament Book Used as Scripture?


Few issues in the study of the NT canon have generated more discussion (and disagreement) than that of the canon’s date. When were Christian writings first regarded as “Scripture”? When was the first time we can see that happening?

For many modern scholars, the key time is the end of the second century. Only then, largely due to the influence of Irenaeus, were these books first regarded as Scripture.

But, I think there is evidence that NT books were regarded as Scripture much earlier. And some of this evidence is routinely overlooked.... Read More

7 Practical Ways to Spark Spiritual Conversations With Your Children


In a society flooded with demanding little league schedules, cheer competitions and tutoring appointments, it can be difficult to prioritize church involvement—let alone make time for spiritual conversations with children at home.

Statistics from LifeWay Research show the majority of churched young adults drop out of church at some point between the ages of 18 and 22. This reality begs the question—how can parents cultivate an environment where the Christian life is not about checking church attendance boxes, but about pursuing an active relationship with the Lord?

The answer is deceptively simple: if you want to have more spiritual conversations with your children, spend more time with them. Read More

Photo by James Wheeler on Unsplash

Serving at Church: How to Decide What and When.


Do you serve at church on top of working and possibly serving with other ministries? A lot of people ask me if I serve at church. Honestly, I wrestle sometimes trying to decide whether I should or not. If this was 10 or 12 years ago, my whole life was spent in the local church serving in our high school and college ministries.

Now things are a little different since I travel more than ever before, work long hours, and have a 4-year-old and a daughter on the way.

I know this is a question that some people have wrestled with and so I wanted to share a few guidelines that have helped me in the last 10 years.

First and foremost, no matter what we do, our service should bring glory to God. Everything we do can help to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ in some way. Acts 1:8 says that we are to take his word from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

However, does that mean we should take every opportunity that comes our way to serve? Here are a couple of questions to ask that may be helpful in deciding when to serve and when not to serve in your church.... Read More

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Thursday's Catch: Ministry to Single Parents and More


Why the Church Needs Single Parents, and Single Parents Need the Church

Families with one parent are part of God’s family. But how do we minister to their complex needs? Read More

5 Reasons Church Numbers Matter

One of my favorite writers is Charles Spurgeon, the famous 19th century pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. Spurgeon, who emphasized the sovereignty and grace of God in saving non-believers – and who warned against the danger of overemphasizing numbers and admitting non-believers into church membership– also recognized the importance of church statistics. Read More

7 Paradigms Needed for Church Growth

With the best visions there are often paradigms towards implementation that can either help or hinder accomplishment of that vision. I have observed if you want to have a culture susceptible and open to growth then there are some common paradigms necessary. You have to think certain ways in order to reach your desired vision. In most every situation, an absence of certain actions or mindsets on the part of leaders keeps the church from moving forward. Read More

5 Reasons People Come Back to Your Church

The best way your church will break through growth barriers is to do so quickly. I hear from pastors all the time who want to break through specific attendance barriers, whether it’s 100, 150, 250, or even 1,000. Churches rarely break those kinds of barriers through gradual growth. Read More

What’s More Important for Your Church: Growth or Control?

To broaden the ministry impact of your church, you will need to make the difficult choice to give up control. You can choose control, or you can choose growth. But you can’t choose both. Read More

Understanding the Four Major Waves of Exiting Members in a Revitalization or Replant [Podcast]

People will leave the church you pastor. It’s not a matter of if, but of when. So you need to be prepared for it when it happens. Listen Now

Reclaiming the Prophetic Mantle

Biblically, there are three primary voices you can use when speaking into culture: the prophetic, the evangelistic and the heretical. Read More

The Best Book of the Bible for New Believers

If you are a new Christian, the best place to start reading in the Bible is the Gospel of Mark. Read More

One Encouragement and One Warning About Scripture Memory

The Bible doesn’t prescribe a method for scripture memorization. It simply encourages us to do it. Read More

The Worrisome Reasons Why Church Membership Is Falling

The most recent Gallup report identifies three statistical realities that have contributed to the nationwide membership decline. Read More