ChurchPlanting.com

Resourcing Church Starters

Ecclesial Sabotagology - Part 1

Filed under: Church Planting, Church Leadership — editor

- the fine art of church suicide

“My word… I now know for certain. My church has lost its collective mind…” - Bob, the cowboy commentator and church consultant

My friend Bob looked up from reading the blog on his laptop. He pulled off his reading glasses with some drama as he does when miffed (an effective technique - you might consider picking up a pair of spectacles whether you need them or not).

Bob explained his ‘Mad-as-a-hornet, can’t take no more’ response.

He wasn’t one bit negative. Deep love and pain was emerging.

“I’ve always thought when someone takes their own life that they are out of their mind - at least at that moment. Maybe this holds true for groups when they do the same…”

Bob’s words hung in the air - like a slow moving indoor cloud hovering in the room. Bob spoke a drop dead amazing truth.

One thing is certain - 100% of the innumerable groups who succeeded in a suicide attempt - not one was thinking clearly at the moment of the ultimate deed.

Is there a pattern that leads up to a church or a spiritual movement to self-destruct? Ponder these common patterns that lead up to what lemmings do each spring.

•Celebrating The Tragedy of Others… other leaders / churches!

“They finally got what was coming them them / him / her. Yep, God got ‘em good. You can’t fool Him…”

If you haven’t thought this or said it you likely aren’t thinking back hard enough. Human nature makes such behavior tendencies natural to us all. Call it “The Martha Stewart Effect.” She goes to prison without protesting the initial sentence dished out to her. Amazingly, the vast majority of Americans decided they hated Martha - they decided to enthusiastically believe the worst about her. There is something particularly savory about believing the worst about those who have been highly successful in life. This goes double for the leaders of large churches. ‘They are large because they are doing something that’s not kosher…’ (No names here please…)

Recommend: Start praying for a church each week like this, “God we ask you to bless this other church today - we ask you to profoundly touch them today more than us…”

•Church Suicide Comes From The Passive Condoning of Toxic Attitudes
Rarely will leaders in the local church clearly say aloud what is as negative as what is carried about in the heart. “We really don’t like people who aren’t like us…” Who in their right mind would cop to that?… especially official leaders. Yet can you explain how it is that great public efforts are taken to increase attendance yet the ‘backdoor’ siphons more out than in?

Recommend: If you are one who speaks or has a voice into the leadership, be candid about your heart. Fear keeps us stuck and away rather than toward people. To like people is more costly than to love people very often!

•Church Suicide Begins With Bombastic Attitudes
“We really are all that - and more!” No comment necessary.

Recommend: Pray with an honest, open heart. Start with confessions. When God shows up honesty tends to happen.

Bob never told me what upset him that day. That wasn’t the point. He loves his heritage. Even more he loves the Church at large - as do I on both points. Maybe we are on the same boat as it works in fellow-ship.

The Patron Saint of Church Starters

Filed under: Church Planting — editor

…of all leaders, launchers most need interventional help

I didn’t grow up going to church. If I were a contestant on Jeopardy and the category popped onto “Roman Catholic Tradition” I’d lose my shirt. But in recent years I have received a crash course on the RC teaching regarding saints.

I now understand the saint arrangement at least to the degree that I no longer offend the daylights out of Roman Catholics with conversational quips (those long delays that follow what I thought was clever). I have gotten to the point in my slim reading about RC saints that I even have a favorite saint. If you are a launcher / planter or are highly involved in a launch, get ready to have your world rocked with what I’m about to share (you just might do a Google search for a bookmark bearing this guy’s likeness as a reminder).

Drumroll please…

Jude, the brother of Jesus, was an amazing risk taker. You can call him ‘St. Jude’ if you wish. You are probably familiar with ‘St. Jude’s Medical Center’ in Memphis, the cause championed by many celebs that fights diseases thought to be incurable. Why the name ‘St. Jude’ in that case? It’s the perfect name for that center. St. Jude was the champion of impossible causes. Since the early days of the Church’s history when some began to think of exemplary believers as ‘saints’, Jude was early on identified as…

The Stand Up Guy for ‘Lost Causes’

The more I ponder this amazing guy’s life and example, the more I relate to him as a planter-launcher for the past thirty years. Janie and I have been either the point leaders or part of small lead teams that have essentially parachuted into five cities around the world with little more than a wing and a prayer to launch new works.

The Jude in reference here was Jesus’ half brother. That is, he was a son of Mary and Joseph. He was initially a skeptic who became a Jesus follower in time as he pondered what was going on. My guess is Jude jumped into this whole Jesus following thing with questions yet to be answered. Skeptics are like that. I know - I think that way myself. C.S. Lewis never had all his questions answered. Point is - skeptics often make the best leaders. Why? They don’t typically ponder, scratch their chin scruff and then do nothing. These are the ones who walked away from opportunity. These are the ones who were in the middle of something - life interrupted to do this other life.

The Power of A Magnificent Loss(es)

Anyone who hasn’t lost something GREAT in order to do the Jesus thing as a leader - that’s a leader I don’t have a huge regard for. That is a faux leader. That is a leader who is working their way up the opportunity ladder. They are now at the top of their game! ‘Big fish - little pond.’
I sometimes am maligned for making light of ‘leaders’ in the church world - for hurting their feelings… The exact line most recently was, “No one knows who you are. You are living in an orbit the size of a Cheerio. No one will ever know who you are. Give up on it. Start washing windows. Find satisfaction in becoming a nobody from nowhere - a knucklehead…”

The stories I love have a lot of the implication to ‘Walked away from’ or ‘Couldn’t afford to waste my time making money’ any longer because there were greater things at stake.

I am a lost cause

Until I realized that though there are gifts deposited in me… that God has invested greatly in me / us… he has gone out of his way to get us to this point in the journey…

None of that will begin to kick into gear until I realize I am all that is focused upon in Luke 15 - the lost coin, lost sheep, the lost son. I am only an asset as I realize how much of a liability I am unless Jesus lives his life through me.

Every city I have planted in has been antithetical to a place that has potential

Demographics… Schmemographics. If Jesus has made an invitation clear, then all is well. My previous invitation was to a city that had been widely known as the most unfriendly city in the U.S. - and took pride in that ranking. Fifty church launches later things are different - or at least beginning to change the spiritual atmosphere of a city of two million - and beyond. The invitation is what matters.

The people we attract are nearly all lost causes

Though this is our fifth launch some things never change. We draw people who are very un-alike from one another. Ranging from sexually confused folks to families who listen to Dobson and home school with long hair, denim jumpers and are boycotting all Disney films now for whatever reason. The wealthy and the ones I cannot figure out how in the world they get here every week.

Janie and I are up to our gills in this all over again in Tampa.

We realize our lives are meant to be be spent starting parties and parades. Jesus has filled our pockets with an unending supply of seeds to do just that. We will spend all our days flinging seeds abundantly - without hesitation, no need for perfect preparation.