The Missing Link

Sunday morning:  we catch up with our friends, have a coffee after the service, sing some lively songs, send the kids to Kids' Church, and even listen to a motivating sermon.

But what's the link to the other six days of the week?

Does your Sunday morning worship service

• focus you on Jesus?
• refresh your spirit?
• help you "rest" in God?
• equip you for the other six days?
• energise you for the rest of the week?
• encourage you to "go"?

Hopefully, it's a resounding "Yes!"   But why aren't we going?  In the western church, we are not doing so well in the "going" part.

Jesus commanded His disciples to "Go":

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.  Matt. 28:19-20 NASB

Can we do better?   Again, it's a resounding "Yes!"  

Look carefully at the start of the Great Commission: 

Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me... (Mt. 28:17)

It is in the authority of Jesus that we go out into the world, not in our own strength or self-imposed authority.

Paul listened to the Holy Spirit and allowed the Spirit to guide his feelings:

Now while Paul was waiting for them at Athens, his spirit was being provoked within him as he was observing the city full of idols. Acts 17:16

So he sought out meeting and gathering places, first with those who had a relationship with God, then others from day to day who were interested in discussing spiritual matters:

... he was reasoning in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Gentiles, and in the market place every day with those who happened to be present.  And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, "What would this idle babbler wish to say?" Others, "He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities," - because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection. 

 Paul's credibility and message brought him privileges:

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, "May we know what this new teaching is which you are proclaiming?  For you are bringing some strange things to our ears; so we want to know what these things mean."  

Paul's famous Areopagos or Mars Hill speech followed in vv. 22-31, and we are told that many believed.

We have our own "go" situations:  neighbours, school car parks, university, lunch room, work mates, boardroom, , changeroom (yes, really - I have lots of conversations in the changeroom!), train, bus, sports groups, and ... (insert yours here)

Some of the advantages of linking Sunday to the other six days:

• You will feel more encouraged to use your spiritual gifts
• Jesus will be all of your life, not in the "Sunday box"
• You will be reaching others for the gospel
• You will embrace the "community" of your local church as you share stories, failures, successes, fears and prayer points together!
• You will naturally begin to disciple others
• You will develop meaningful relationships 
• The true church will grow spiritually and numerically, a biblical mandate

Not convinced?  Try it.  

Feel alone?  You won't be:

"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  

What I'm Reading: Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts

This book is easy to read yet has plenty of practical advice for churches, church planters and those considering and planning church starts.   Although easy to read, the authors leave you with the impression that they have lots more experience to offer but have held back to make the book easy and practical without being overly technical.

There is not a lot of scriptural backing for the lessons in this book, nor is it a teaching book - it is a series of ten practical lessons from experienced church planters.   Nonetheless, it is spiritually focused, not humanistic, written by authors who are focused on growing the church universal.

Striking lessons are encapsulated in the following excerpts:

Regarding church planting, ... opposition also comes in the form of churches in the area that feel "threatened" by the presence of a newly forming faith community.  These churches lack a Kingdom mindset and see this church as the "competition".

 In the local context of missional church planting, 

Planting a church is a process of experimentation, innovation, and replication, but always within the realities of the mission field and how it's responding.

... shepherd modeling,

One of the hard lessons we learn in consulting with churches is that if the pastor ceases to model inviting the public and pushing the Great Commission then the congregation will become a closed system.

Never forget church planting is a "contact sport":  everyone must contact all of their networks for it to succeed - families, friends, neighbours and associates - all the time.  They won't make these contacts unless you lead by example and constantly encourage them to do so.

Making disciples is not about adding people to your church.  Making disciples is about introducing people to God's love found within the community of faith.  Making disciples is helping people fall in love with God and becoming more like Jesus.

Worship service focus:

Churches that plateau at 150 participants lean heavily, and almost exclusively, on the "corporate" event of public worship.  They fail to develop a process to connect people to each other and to God throughout the week.

The authors introduce "gene" discussions:

You must understand that those planters with the apostolic gene will not revert to a shepherding role.  But those planters with the shepherding gene will too quickly revert to taking care of people and will lose any incentive to reach more people and the church will plateau, typically within two years of launch.

One of the most common myths says that all planters have been infected with the "independence gene" and rebel against any form of authority.  Nothing could be further from our experience.  Most planters understand they are under authority.

When I was reading the book, I found that this discussion about the "shepherd gene" and "apostolic gene" was very interesting and well worth further personal thought.   On the other hand, the terms needed defining and distinguishing for this discussion to be in proper context in the chapter and to help to introduce readers to this very important concept.

In my opinion, the central theme of the book is encapsulated in the quote, "You have to plant in the way you are experiencing God leading you, not how someone else has done it or told you how to do it."

I found it has some theologically questionable and liberal concepts, but putting these aside it is a helpful book.   The book is worth reading for any church, elder, small group leader or church planter, as the concepts and lessons are certainly transferrable and applicable for any church situation.

The ten chapters in this book are:

1. Neglecting the Great Comandment in Pursuit of the Great Commission
2. Failing to Take Opposition Seriously
3. A Love Affair with One's Fantasy Statement Blinds the Planter to the Mission Field
4. Premature Launch
5. Evangelism Ceases after the Launch
6. No Plan for the Other Six Days of the Week
7. Fear of Talking about Money until it is too Late
8. Failure of the Church to Act its Age and its Size
9. Formalising Leadership Too Soon
10. Using the "Superstar Model" as the Paradigm for all Church Plants 

Ten Most Common Mistakes Made by New Church Starts by Jim Griffith/Bill Easum, Chalice Press, St. Louis, eBook 2008, downloaded 2017.  It is currently $13.71 on amazon.com.au at time of publishing.

Screwy Worldview

Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.   Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours-and the more "religious" (on those terms) the more securely ours. 

Or so says Screwtape to Wormwood in C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, Chapter 7.  But is it true?

If you have never read the Screwtape Letters, I would highly recommend it.   The book contains a series of imaginative letters written by a senior demon (Screwtape) to his apprentice, Wormwood.   Typical of C.S. Lewis' writings, the letters are closely aligned to biblical truths, with each chapter addressing a particular problem of Christian life.  Screwtape and Wormwood are trying to keep people from serving Jesus.

Read the opening paragraph again now, this time in context:

Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.   Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours-and the more "religious" (on those terms) the more securely ours.  I could show you a pretty cageful down here,

Your affectionate uncle

Screwtape

Have you met people who are involved in "churches" but they are totally focused on programs, good works, social justice, political agendas or petitions?   These things can be good but if they are done in the wrong way, with the wrong heart or for the wrong purpose, they are useless.  In fact, they are worse than useless because they actually work against the very business that we should be about - building Jesus' church.   But building the "church" must be numerically based; that is, numbers into the eternal Kingdom of God, not people sitting in pews, filling church office roles or promoting programs in order to increase giving.

So what is the application for us as well-meaning, sincere evangelicals who want to serve God?   Firstly, one application is to be aware of the enemy and guard our hearts:

Be self controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.  1 Pet. 5:8-9

Secondly, recognise the solution:  you can resist the devil and his schemes by standing firm in your faith (that is, faith in the blood of Jesus).

Finally, look for those who Screwtape calls the "religious" folk.   They might even be lurking in your church circles!  Help them to recognise that religion is based on works - man trying to get to God (which man can never achieve) but that true faith - Christianity - is God coming down to man.  Help them to understand that salvation is through faith alone, by the grace of God.   

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast.  Eph. 2:8-9

Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me."  Jn. 14:6

Image from http://existenceofgod.org/screwtape-letters-real-life-dont-let-him-ask/