Category Archives: church planting

Viral.

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Paper Tiger Coffee, chocolate rain, and church. The three are, or should be connected. We’ve developed this new verbiage in our internet centered world of something “going viral”. The goofy video of Tay Zonday awkwardly singing “Chocolate Rain” on youtube became one of the most watched videos of all time. There was no marketing campaign, there was no advertising, there was no plea to the world around to share his video. Instead, people shared, people linked, people talked and laughed and told their friends about chocolate rain. It spread. Viral. Paper Tiger is a coffee shop that I frequent. They’re not in my direct neighborhood so I have to drive there instead of walk. But they have good great coffee, they have a good feel, they are a hub of community. When I go there I get to know people. I’d prefer to be in a coffee shop in my neighborhood, I’d prefer a coffee shop with a different variety of pastries (sorry), but I find myself coming back because they know what they are, they’re comfortable with who they are, and I like how I connect with those things. Here’s the connection, I don’t just go to Paper Tiger, but I tell my friends about it! I actually talk about their coffee shop in my every day life. I tell people to go there, I tell people about their coffee, I meet people there, I carry the torch for Paper Tiger just like thousands carried the torch (so to speak) for Chocolate Rain.

Church. Churches spend a lot of time and money trying to sell themselves to the world. They send out mass mailers, they advertise on the radio, put up billboards, and they do events that give them name recognition among other things. In other words, they try to carry the torch themselves. Churches have a good enough message, a potentially good enough medium, and a good enough base to “go viral” in our communities.* What would happen if churches clarified what they were all about, what they were not about, and developed a sense of comfort with those things. What if we tried to cultivate a culture that empowered people to carry the torch? I think the word that the Bible uses is “evangelism”.

* “good enough” is kind of a poor term to choose with regard to the message and medium of Christianity. If it is only    “good enough” then I think we’ve got some problems!

Thoughts From an "Outsider"

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This will be a repeat for some of you. But for those of you who do not receive my newsletter, you’ve got to read this story from a good friend of mine. It was written for February’s newsletter and has already had a surprisingly deep impact. I will post the article below as it appeared in my newsletter. Please read and pass it on to a friend.

This is one of my favorite articles I have included in a newsletter yet. Some of you have read Mo’s story from the July 2009 newsletter, well she has written again this month and it includes some very challenging words. I want to encourage you to not be put off by a difference in opinion, theology, or perspective, but to instead hear one person’s journey in raw
and authentic form. The point here is not correct doctrine,
but learning to listen.

___________________________________________

I recently came upon a question posed on an online forum that provoked me. The question, essentially was: If outsiders have
visited church services and found it wanting and don’t want
to go back…what then? A number of people were uncomfortable with the use of the word “outsiders”. Including the person who originally posted the question for discussion. I‘m not. I think it is entirely appropriate. Especially in this context. I am myself an outsider. I was an insider before too.

I was not brought up in a church attending family. In high school I was drawn to a church youth group and fell in love with the church and its congregation. I went all the time. Really. For some reason they gave me a key to the church and I would go at midnight after school football games. I attended every service. I was there for most official church events as well as random off hours. When I felt weird and like I didn’t fit in at school because I was the only Asian kid in a sea of Caucasian faces, I felt safe, accepted and loved at church. I knew the lingo and the secret handshake! I eventually even went to seminary. I had definitely made the conversion from outsider to insider.

Then…I figured out that I am gay. And my church body decided I was an outsider. It was incredibly painful to be disaffected by my spiritual family. It was also frustrating to try to dialogue about my experience and be told I had nothing of value to add to the discussion until I “got right” with god and got rid of “the gay“. In other words, I was still allowed in the building as long as I kept my mouth shut. I was met with rigid legalism and much…MUCH finger shaking. I was NOT met with love. Or compassion. Or a desire to help me talk through this real challenge in my life. Nor was I met with an honest humility that we are all sinners and all sin is repugnant to God’s eyes. I don’t think being gay is a sin, but was never allowed to articulate my convictions. My experience is mirrored nationally. The church community I loved has declared war on my gay brothers and sisters. And me. So I left.

Now here I am, an outsider again. I went to other churches for awhile. It’s funny. If you attend services there is always a break for folks to greet each other and welcome newcomers. There is a new attendee (outsider) form you are encouraged to fill out so the church can follow up with you. I can attest from personal experience, of the 37 different churches I went to and filled out their form. (I did mention I was gay and not conflicted about it.) Exactly zero ever followed up with me. Periodically I get a longing to attend services and be part of a spiritual family that is working to build stronger communities through practical demonstration of God’s love. Mostly I squelch it. So we are back to the original question. If outsiders have visited church services and found it wanting and don’t want to go back…what then? This is me. I don’t want to keep bruising myself against the un-Christ-like inflexibility of an organized church. I don’t want to be the object lesson of how sanctified (read sanctimonious) YOU are because your sins aren’t political hot buttons. Hello….glass house…stones.

I don’t know if I can ever believe in God again. I do know that if I am ever likely to, it won’t be from attending a church service. Tried that. Found it wanting. Don’t want to go back. End of story, right? Until I met an unusual Christian who doesn’t judge me or preach to me. Simply shares the stories of his life with me and is interested in the stories of my life. I don’t feel he has an agenda with me. Like some spiritual salesperson earning his eternal commission. (You know you’ve met them) I am extremely sensitive to “fake” concern over my spiritual wellbeing and threats of damnation if I don’t correct my behavior. Yet this Christian man never triggers my alarms. When I am around him or his wife I periodically think I may catch glimpses of Christ out of the corners of my eyes. I feel welcomed back into the discussion. I may or may not find my way back to the church again. But for the first time in many years I am engaged in an internal AND external dialogue about it that feels productive. Christians are called to go into the world (great commission stuff). I personally have only met two who are doing that. It renews my hope if not yet my faith to know that there are Christians willing to. It is scary to leave your comfortable church and your comfortable assumptions and meet “outsiders” where they are. It’s scary. It’s also what you are called to do.
—Mo

A Church Planters Job Description

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I think it is becoming more and more evident that school (undergraduate) does not really prepare you for any sort of career or job. I mean, maybe there are some fields where your undergrad studies actually prepare you for what you’re getting into, but more often than not it just gives you a platform big enough for you to jump into the abyss from. Within this framework I’ve been doing some thinking about everything I needed to learn in college in order to be prepared to be a church planter. Because the list can be enormous I will only focus on practical needs.

  1. Fund raising. I was never taught to ask for money, how to ask for money, or how to find success in asking for money. But the reality is that aside from prayer I think that fundraising is the single most crucial thing in getting and keeping church planters going.
  2. Database management. Try fundraising, sending out newsletters, etc. without some kind of working knowledge of how to organize contacts, keep track of the last time you contacted them, keep track of if you’ve written them a thank you note, keep track of whether or not they get your newsletter, support you, etc. I waste my time doing this stuff because I have no idea how to do it, but it’s a must!
  3. Written word. In seminary you get a class or two about how to preach, so in theory you’re completely prepared to be a weekly teacher (read in sarcasm here) but the written word is completely different. You’ve got to write newsletters, blog posts, and articles among other things.
  4. Graphic Design. Connected to number three, if you’re writing newsletters you had better make them look good. Also you probably don’t have money to pay someone to make your new churches website so you had better start figuring out a way to make your own website! You’ve got to make yourself some sort of church logo, design your own business cards, and create all those beautiful documents and posters that make any worship space a communication workhorse.
  5. Powerpoint. You should probably learn this in high school, but if you didn’t you’re in trouble ’cause any church planter without his powerpoint might as well be naked. Learn it, use it, custom animations, inserted video clips and sound, etc.
  6. Social networking. Yes, thats right, starting churches is actually all about people! So if you want to start a church you’ve got to know how to connect with people. What makes it even harder is that often you come out of a schooling context where your nose is stuck in a book (albeit, a good book) for 2-3 years. When you take your nose out of that book and look around at all the people it takes about three years for your eyes and nerves to adjust to human contact again!
  7. Social activist. Church planters must be connected in their neighborhood, in their community, schools, and the like. They attend the PTA meetings, the neighborhood watch meetings, chamber of commerce meetings, they serve at local schools, homeless shelters, and anything else that sends them to the community in love. Try learning that in seminary.
  8. Training leaders. One of the most important things you do as a leader is to train other leaders. Otherwise you’ll never create a sustained movement and your church will only go as far as your Superman-like shoulders will take it. How do you train a leader? Who do you train? Do you take them through a curriculum or just let them shadow you? Do you just look for those who already lead and tell them to keep doing it or do you plug in people where you think they’ll fit? Leadership development is important!
  9. Time Management. I know, I know, this is in no way unique to church planters…except for the fact that often you do not have an office when you start a new church. Which means that you’re working from home, from coffee shops, libraries, and anywhere else that has wifi. You had better learn to stay motivated and on task ’cause there are an innumerable amount of distractions around you.
  10. Finally (though I’m sure you could list more) your appearance. Can you grow a good goatee? Do you look good with a shaved head? Got plugs? How about a tattoo? Do you own a Moleskin? Have an iphone? Got good eyesight? If you have good eyesight you had better stab yourself in the eye ’cause you’ve got to have a pair of black framed glasses!

School cannot and will not ever prepare you for all that!  So what’s the answer? Obviously experience can never be replaced. But I would also suggest that reinventing how school and graduate work is done is vital (see Rochester College’s new Missional Leadership degree). But even more practically speaking we need more opportunities to watch, follow, be mentored, and learn from others’ mistakes. I get excited when I see groups like Kairos an Northwest Church Planting because they are beginning to offer these types of experiences.

Oh yeah, and I didn’t even get into the stuff that really makes a new church work. Stuff like prayer, listening to God, engaging the world, taking care of your family, theology…you know, all that stuff!

Worshiping on Saturday

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I worshiped last week with the Cascade Hills Church of Christ, a church plant that launched at the same time that we did almost five years ago. We drove down to Salem on Sunday morning to be with them. Jason, the leader there, referred to that day as their church Saturday. What he meant by this was that Jesus died on Friday and resurrected on Sunday, and on Saturday God was just…well…dead. Followers of Christ celebrate the backwards nature that God brings life out of death, and on that Sunday Cascade Hills was dying. They had not yet experienced the full reality of the life that would happen as a result of their death, and so they celebrated their “Saturday”. Jason said some powerful words that resonated with me. He listed some of the top things he had learned in planting Cascade Hills.

  1. Responsibility makes you old (makes you grow up)
  2. The best way to learn something is to teach it or do it
  3. There is more to do than we’ll ever be able to do
  4. When everything goes wrong…things then tend to be just about right
  5. In order to do church you’ve got to go where people are
  6. A few people can make a huge impact
  7. Prayer works
  8. Building faith takes time
  9. Failure and faithfulness often go hand in hand
  10. People make the church (not vision statements, strategies, buildings, programs, etc.)

Who do you look like?

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There’s a church planting couple here in the NW that came from a traditional church, had worked in established ministry for years, and felt “called” to work with people in downtown Portland. I do not know these people well so I cannot speak with much insight as to how their lives and hearts have changed over years of doing this ministry. But I can tell you that their appearance has changed. She has had dreads (and has since cut them off and started them again), they have many piercings, tattoos, and they dress the part too. It might be easy for us skeptical types to look at them and make jokes about how they’re trying to look cool or something of that nature. But concerning the way they look my wife heard the woman say that the two of them did not set out to look different and change their appearance. Instead, she said, the more time you spend with a people and the more you fall in love with a people the more you want to look like them and be like them.

As I processed this I remembered me and my other tall and skinny white friend who lived in Portugal together. We stood out. We looked different. We were loud when we road the bus. We wore t-shirts and baggy jeans. But by the time we left some things had changed. Without ever trying or even thinking about it we acted differently in public settings. We dressed differently (embarrassingly enough we began to wear tighter jeans). In many ways, small ways, we began to look more like the people we were with.

I’m intrigued by this idea in two ways.

  1. Are you loving the people around you to the extent that you might start looking like them?
  2. Is your Christian community living and loving in such a way that people who hang out with you are starting to look like you?