Spark: Igniting a Culture of Multiplication (My Review)

After attending the Exponential Conference in Florida a couple of months ago, I read the short book given to every conference participant.  Continuing the theme of the conference, this short book discusses the need to work towards multiplication in our local churches.

The primary tension that defines the problem and illustrates the proposed solution, centers around the imagery of "addition" versus "multiplication."  The author contends that the church growth culture of recent decades focuses on "addition."  We fulfill our mission by reaching more people.  Every one person matters to Jesus, right?  If we reach one person at a time, we eventually reach the entire world, right?  Maybe not.  The author rightly reminds us that the problems that accompany this "addition" mindset include the necessity to constantly add seats, staff, programs and structure to effectively minister to all of the added people.  In the end, too much time and money is spent accommodating our growth by addition.

The alternative?  The author suggests that we multiply.  As in, send out members and leaders to start new churches.

This is much more difficult than it seems.  (I have tried it....We are trying it...It is really hard!)  But I think he is right.

I really appreciate three elements of the conversation in this short book.  First of all, the author takes an "and" approach.  He rightly acknowledges that multiplication cannot happen without addition.  Second, I appreciate that he acknowledges just how difficult this is.  He shares case studies of both successes and failures.  Third, he outlines 17 tensions, or decision-points, but from the perspective of one pastor who successfully lead a church through this process.  This is not just a book of theory!

My only negative critique?  It was helpful to have the tensions outlined.  It would have been more helpful to also read some general guidelines for where to land in a few areas. For instance, Tension #5 - "Filling our Church Vs. Starting a New Church" looks at how large a church should be before planting.  It would be extremely helpful to have at least a few suggestions with some numbers, or at least a suggestion of how to make this decision. 

In the end, it is another good book, that is worth being read by any church that wants to make a huge commitment to make a huge impact for Jesus. By the way, it is also available in ebook format from Exponential.

Rethinking The Church - my review of James Emery White's book

After recently reading James Emery White's The Rise of the Nones, I was excited to read this earlier work of his.  As the title suggests, White encourages church leaders to re-think everything.  As the church growth movement enters another generation, we must again rethink not only our methodologies, but our strategies as well.  He also makes a clarion call not to rethink, but to appropriately remember our foundation of mission and vision in light of the Bible and theology.

I really connected with the chapter on rethinking evangelism.  White first suggests that we need to re-think our audience.  If we are trying to reach those who are not trusting in Christ for salvation, we must understand their level of knowledge and familiarity with Christ and the claims of the gospel.  For the purposes of illustration, White suggests an evangelistic readiness scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being a follower of Christ.  He contends that in 1960, the average American was an 8.  They believed in Jesus, including that he was the son of God and lived a perfect life.  Many even believed that Jesus died on the cross for them. It was a short trip to trusting in Christ.  They merely needed to make their belief personal.  Several decades later, he contends that the average American now sits at a 3.  They likely know something about Jesus, but not much more than that he was a good teacher. They also have little to no trust in the church and religion.  It is a looooong, journey to a 10. In response, he emphasizes that evangelism must now be seen as a process, rather than a one-time event.  This is gold, especially for us long-time church folks!

The second best insight centers on White's assessment of the evangelistic environment of churches.  Using the "seeker" language of the late 90's, he describes a continuum with "seeker hostile" on one end, moving then to "seeker indifferent," then to "seeker hopeful," then to "seeker sensitive" and finally to "seeker targeted."  This is helpful and important for churches to take a good and honest look at their evangelistic ministry. After years of evangelistic emphasis, it is easy to remain even seeker indifferent.

From here, the book diminishes in quality in the remaining chapters as he addresses discipleship, worship, community and structure.  I just felt like it was very basic, and that I have heard this before, many times over!  I might be feeling this way for several reasons.  First, this book was originally published in 1997, then revised in 2003.  This means that the revised edition is 12 years old.  I have heard all of this for 12 years now, so it is nothing new, but it probably was when it was published.  Second, White acknowledges his indebtedness to Rick Warren and Bill Hybels.  In fact, his chapters pretty much follow the five purposes as outlined by Warren. I am so familiar with their philosophies of ministry that this is very old stuff to me.

In other words, this book might contain new ideas for some people, including many church leaders, but just not for me.  I cannot discount its value, for the first chapter was worth the entire book.

In the conclusion, White shares one more new insight.  He notes that as a pastor leads a church to change, the most difficult change will be from a "seeker sensitive" to a "seeker targeted" atmosphere, because at that point the average church member is forced to change and to stop seeing himself as the "customer."  While many might accuse White of supporting a consumer-oriented mindset of church, at this point he shows that he understands the missional nature of church and leaders.  But he also shows that he is a realist who understands that the move from consumer to giver/server is a long and slow one for the average church member.

If you are a church leader, especially a lay leader, trying to understand the changes happening in the church world, check out this book!

The Big Idea - Themed Worship Services on Steroids!

Several years ago I was introduced to the idea of themed worship services.  The pastor of  growing and thriving church on the Indiana side of Chicago told those of us in the workshop that he believed the move to planning themed worship services was the greatest factor in their church's growth.

What is a themed worship service?  I don't know if "themed" is the best adjective, but it is the one I use.  A themed worship service is a church service planned around a theme.  In other words, every song, every Scripture, the message, etc. is chosen with the theme in mind.  This is good preaching taken to the next level.  Every good sermon has one main idea.  Whether the sermon has three points or a ten-step list, the sermon centers around one main idea.  (By the way, do you know what listeners hate the most about sermons?  When sermons get off track, listeners will furrow their brows and ask, "where is he going with this?"  At that point you are done!)  Taken to the next level, themed worship service planning then designs the entire worship service around the main idea!

I first heard about Dave and Jon Ferguson, brothers and pastors of Community Christian Church, when I read their book Exponential. I was inspired beyond description and purchased two other books by them.  I previously wrote about The Apprentice Field Guide.  That short volume is a training manual for raising up new leaders.  The other book I picked up was The Big Idea.  In this book, the brothers Ferguson tell about the process they use to plan worship services.

The best part of this book for me was the theoretical foundation.  The authors propose that real discipleship is lacking for two reasons.  First, we know much more than we do.  As Christ-followers, we memorize Bible verses, we study background information about Bible passages, we learn about prayer, and we often learn in place of doing.  In other words, we have too much information and not enough transformation.  Secondly, in our experience of church, and especially of church services, we encounter too many small ideas.  They suggest that we might receive over 20 disconnected teaching points, or instructions, or ideas, in a given service.  No wonder we don't apply all of them - they are too many and to small!  Their solution?  Every worship service has one Big Idea.  And the entire service is designed to help teach and reinforce that big idea.  Beyond that, they form their adult small groups around the big idea so that what gets taught on Sunday gets discussed on Tuesday night!  Even their kids and youth programs work with the big idea!  At this point, this book is gold!

These guys do not just lob a great theory in the air and then expect us to catch it and run with it.  They have done the hard work to create a process that gets a lot of input from everyone on the team, with plenty of time to implement the various pieces of each service.  In this respect, they also highlight another roadblock to effective worship planning.  Just as preachers discover, when you are working week-to-week, there is simply not enough time to make videos, work up the perfect song, etc., in 5 days.  In response, Community Christian Church works through a long and complicated process that begins with a planning retreat at the beginning of a year, followed by meetings and further planning sessions where the leaders, teachers, small group leaders, worship leaders, tech guys, etc., get involved and begin planning. 

I have to admit, the second half of the book was a bit tedious.  That was probably because we are so far away from that level of planning that I had a difficult time getting into it.  But this would be great stuff for a church considering a move to this level of planning.

I know that with many book review I say, "You gotta read this book!"  Well, with this one, I am not so sure.  If you are a church leader, you really need to start with Exponential.  Now that is a book that you gotta read.  And if the on the big idea in that volume gets your attention, then you might want to get a copy of The Big Idea.

Confessions of a Reformission Rev. - My Review of Mark Driscoll's story

I read this book several months ago - maybe even a year ago.  I really should have written this review much sooner, as a lot has happened in the last couple of months to Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill Church.

I had heard about the "cussing pastor from Seattle" but had never really known much about him.  Then I downloaded a few of his podcasts.  I listened to the audiobook of one of his early books on the structure and nature of Church.  I like him - mostly.  I honestly don't think he is that great of a preacher - he preaches too long and tends to wander.  But who am I to judge - after all, he lead a growing church from a handful to 13,000.  However, that church no longer exists.

This book was one in a series published by the Leadership Network.  After reading their "Exponential" book, I decided to read this also. Published in 2006, Mars Hill was running over 4,000 people per weekend and heading towards 10,000.

I love Driscoll's candor and honesty.  He tells of his struggles and mistakes.  He owns up to his own sin.  In fact, many of the wrongs that were brought up over the last few years are the issues he publicly owns up to in this book!

I wonder if the Mars Hill Church story is a book about a church that grew too fast.  In many ways, I heard loud and clear that they struggled to maintain growth and then, as they were growing, they struggled to manage their own fame.  Mark tells about his getting to the point of a nervous breakdown, and his decision to limit his travel schedule.  He tells about the pressures on his family.  At the same time, though, he tells of difficult decisions made to grow the church.  In a couple of places, he tells of decisions to let some associate leaders resign/transition because they were not ready for the next level.  In other words, he fired them so that he could find a higher-capacity leader.  And in the light of the downfall of Mars Hill, this happened time and again and really the church in the long-run.

While I am getting very critical here, I also recognize that Mars Hill was reaching a crowd that most churches are not reaching - unchurched, nonbelievers in a very culturally-liberal area!  And he was doing it with a very conservative theology!  Many experts would suggest that such is impossible!  So before we are quick to judge, it would be proper for us to appreciate exactly what Driscoll was doing right!

I did get one big takeaway from this book.  Driscoll suggests that churches that effectively reach people are theologically conservative and culturally liberal.  Chew on that for a while!

I also really benefited from the 10 Curious Questions found in Chapter Zero. With these diagnostic questions, Driscoll encourages church leaders to answer the difficult questions, to identify what their church will look like and act, and to think through the implications of our answers.  Good stuff here, even if you can't stand the man who wrote it!  It is in these opening chapters that we find that Driscoll indeed has a good grasp on theology, organization and leadership. No wonder he lead a growing church.

"Gathered and Scattered" is too Simplistic

"Gathered & Scattered"

Gathered:  When the church comes together for worship, teaching, fellowship, sacraments, etc.

Scattered:  When the church departs the gathering, proceeding into the world for mission. evangelism, justice etc.

What is the church called to do?  The answer is easy: BOTH

This sounds nice.  It is nice.  It is a simple couplet, easy to remember.

But it is too simplistic. 

We often assume that our "scattering" is an individualistic endeavor to merely be Jesus wherever else we do life.  Or, in an attempt to combat individualism, we sit around tables with Bibles and beers (or coffee, if we are holiness folk), with other Christians and call in community, but in a spiritually neutral location so we can call it missional.  Assuming that our being will rub off on others, we conveniently excuse our lack of doing.


Here is the problem - it only lasts one generation.  Where is the multiplication?  In order for the cause of Christ and the Kingdom of Christ to last for more than a generation, there must be multiplication of disciples and of the gatherings of the disciples.  Yes, this includes the multiplication of organizations and institutions, but only as necessary to support the multiplication of disciples.
What if, instead of merely scattering to our workplaces, neighborhoods, and places of need, we scattered as teams, with the purpose and intent to re-gather in smaller groupings, in these other places of work, neighborhood, or need, not for more fellowship, but to intentionally invite others to gather as inquirers, seekers and disciples?

It is just not as simple as "gather and scatter."  There must be more.  We must envision and plan with an end in mind that includes multiplication "to the ends of the earth."  Then and only then are we faithful to the mission of Jesus.

Apprentice Field Guide - good stuff for learning how to mentor a ministry apprentice

After reading Jon Ferguson's book Exponential, I knew that I wanted to learn more.  The Ferguson brothers richly blend  personal discipleship with systemic discipleship.  That is, they are not just engaging in one-on-one discipleship, which always creates bottlenecks and is difficult to do on a larger scale. At the same time, they are not just church systems thinkers who attempt to disciple by program (which also doesn't work).  It seems that the key to maintaining this balance between personal and systemic ministry is their process of leadership development.  They develop leaders of programs by personal contact - and to which they give the term, apprenticing. 

Christian Community Church is by no means the first to use the term apprentice.  They know that.  But they have interestingly appropriated it to Christian discipleship and leadership development.  And I think this is a  key theory.  In the church world we have typically used the term "discipleship" to describe a process/plan of spiritual growth.  We also use the phrase, "spiritual formation."  In many circles, though, both of those terms describe a process that is all about "me and Jesus" and rarely results in reaching out to others or purposely developing as a leader.  With this in mind, the Fergusons and the folks at Community Christian refer to Peter, James and John as apprentices of Jesus - the guys who were bound to Jesus for the purpose of carrying on his work.  We then are called to become apprentices as well - carrying on the work of Jesus in our culture. 

This is genius!  It is action-oriented.  It expects reproduction and multiplication!  It acknowledges a need for the classic spiritual disciplines taught in spiritual formation- but not for merely personal reasons!  It is also highly relational!  To be honest, I have struggled to know how to develop leaders.  This is giving me some hope - and so I am giving a lot of energy this year to learning and practicing the development of ministry leaders.

Okay, enough for the philosophy of it all - the real help of this book is the practical help of how to identify, ask, mentor and release an apprentice.  Their list of must-have traits of a possible apprentice leader are great and very helpful.  I love the "parking lot test" for relational intelligence - when I see their car pull into the parking lot, am I excited to see them or do I hope to avoid them?"  Very interesting....

For me, the most helpful chapter discussed how to "make the ask," - that is, how to get someone on board to become an apprentice.  The authors remind us to "never say no for someone.  We must allow God to work in their lives.  We cannot have an apprentice if we do not ask.  It's up to us to present the opportunity, and up to God to work in them from there."  I need constant reminder of that.  I am too quick to say, "they are already so busy..."  Who knows how God has already been moving in their hearts?  Further, though, was their teaching to ask the person to pray about it, think about it, and get back to you, and then to pursue them.  Their approach of using ICNU, or "I see in you....the qualities of leadership....a love for kids....a heart for prayer....."  Genius!

This book has been very helpful for me as I explore this concept of developing leaders through apprenticeships - I will keep it on hand!

If you want to order a copy of this book, you can buy it here from Lulu.

I also just found an electronic copy available for free here:  http://242community.com/apprentice-field-guide

"Exponential" has pushed me into high gear!

The corners of the book are bent, the cover is scuffed, and the page edges are green and brown.  You would think that I dragged this book through the woods or something!  Well, I did.  While this is not a post about deer hunting, I have found that I just cannot sit in a tree stand for more than an hour without something to do.  So as I packed up for this season's two day bowhunting camping trip, I grabbed my fresh copy of Dave & Jon Ferguson's book, Exponential.  I believe I received the book from my friend Dale Schaeffer who planted Bridgeway Community Church in Pekin, Illinois.  I attended a workshop where he shared the leadership development principles outlined in this book.  After hearing him, I was hooked. 

While sitting in a tree stand for two days, I was mostly glued to this story of how to do church.  Incidentally, five minutes after I finished the book and put it away, and one hour before heading home, a nice deer walked down the trail.  I will spare you the details, but just know that my family has meat in the freezer!

Dave & Jon Ferguson planted Community Christian Church in Chicago and have experienced explosive growth and an amazing move of God resulting in thousands of changed lives. Exponential: how you and your friends can start a missional movement is their story.  The idea is simple:  focus on reproducing leaders and a church will grow exponentially.  Like many ideas, it sounds so simple, but in practice is difficult!

I noticed three concepts that stood out as consistent cultural practices in the life of their church.  First, their church is built on a theology and strategy of reproduction.  Rightly so, the Fergusons began with the end in mind - following the example of Moses, Jesus, Paul, and the implicit history of Christianity, they realized that a great and godly church must reproduce!  Christians must reproduce Christians; groups must reproduce groups; churches must reproduce churches, and movements must reproduce movements!  Beginning with that end in mind, Dave and Jon built their programs and structures around the idea of effective reproduction!  Genius!

Second, I heard loud and clear their plan for leadership development.  While this sounds like a very organizational term, we again see the example of Moses, Jesus and Paul as they developed future leaders.  If we need churchy language for it, we could call it "discipleship through mentoring, aimed at ministry and evangelism."  (Or we can just call it Leadership Development for Jesus)  At Community Christian, they are focused on developing godly, competent leaders, starting at the most basic level of small group life.  Potential leaders are identified and then asked to be small group apprentices.  Since this is the regular practice of the church, everyone knows that the apprentice is preparing to lead.  And they go from there, gradually promoting leaders in a system in which every leader is both mentoring and being mentored, developing both their skills and their devotion to Jesus.  This system is not only applied to fellowship/discipleship groups, but also to ministry teams.  I loved their description of a campus worship leader introducing an apprentice leader to the congregation, telling them that the apprentice is going to lead "the next song."

This idea inspires me!  It makes me want to push all of our church's LIFE group leaders to identify and begin training an apprentice.  We struggle so much in this area of identifying and developing group leaders. 

Interestingly, the books features the story of Troy McMahon, who started out as an apprentice small group leader, moved up to become a pastor on staff and then eventually moved to Kansas City to plant a church in the north suburbs.  And I know him!  He participated in the interdenominational church planting fellowship in which I participated!!!!  Small world!

The third recurring concept I discovered was that small group life is not only a leadership development system, but is also the connectional system for the church.  I know, I know, I should know this already, that growing churches help people to connect in small groups.  This just affirmed it once again that small groups are massively important.  It doesn't matter what we call them, but our people will only really connect with each other to the degree that they are active in a smaller group.  (This also helps to show the relational skills or lack thereof of potential leaders).  They believe in small groups so strongly that they state that, "small groups are the epicenter of community life in a church." (page 102)

Can you tell that I really liked this model?  Now I want to go to the annual Exponential Conference!

I am going to add two more of the Fergusons' books to my to-be-read pile.  First, I want to check out their Apprentice Field Guide in order to learn more about how to initiate a church-wide apprenticeship program.  Next, I want to read The Big Idea in order to learn how to craft worship services that really teach and connect well.

By the way - there is one more idea in this book that I just cannot forget!  Check out my next post for that idea.

What Does Church Look Like to an "Outsider"? - a book review of "Jim & Casper Go To Church"

I discovered Jim Henderson in 1998 while discovering this thing called the world wide web.  Navigating the awesomeness of the Yahoo search engine, I discovered Jim's website- one of the few that contained fresh information about evangelism.  I didn't really get it, though.  He was just a bit too far out for me.  What I did understand was the model of church-based evangelism I was reading about in my favorite books written by Rick Warren and Bill Hybels.  Jim was feeling something - probably because of his very close connection with avowed atheists.  Long before missional communities and emergent churches became the fad, Jim was sensing the limits of institutional-based evangelism.  His contribution to the field of evangelism has been to encourage us to truly listen to those who openly disagree with us.

I just finished reading Jim & Casper Go to Church.  In the book, Jim aims to help pastors and church leaders understand how our methods, our words, our programs, our advertising, and especially our weekend worship services are experienced and interpreted by "outsiders."  He uses the term "outsiders" without derision, but simply as a fitting description of someone who does not attend church, has little experience with church or church culture, and who probably does not believe in Jesus.  To attain his goal, Jim connected with Matt Casper, a marketing copywriter and freelance author.  Casper is also an atheist.  When Jim pitched the idea to Casper to visit twelve churches in two months, discussing and writing about their experiences in each place, Casper jumped on it.  The book is an easy read.  Well, that is, if you are a church leader who is okay with tough questions.  Because Casper asks a lot them.  But Jim asked him to do just that.

Throughout the book we read about many of America's most famous evangelical churches.  From Willow Creek and Saddleback, through Mars Hill (Seattle) and a house church, to Lakewood and the Potter's House. To keep it real, they even visited a small Presbyterian church in Chicago and a few other unknown churches.

I enjoyed reading Casper's interpretations of what he experienced.  He really struggled with the glitz and glamour of the mega-churches.  While Jim would push him to consider that some of the "amenities" are necessary (you need acres of parking to handle thousands of people!!!!), Casper's constant questioning really makes us think:  is this really what Jesus wants you all doing?

Near the end, Casper offers some observations that are difficult to deal with:  He noted that in almost all of the churches, the form (format) was the same- gather, sing a few songs, pray, preach a sermon, take an offering, and go home. However, he noted that the function (expression of the church's mission) was all over the board; some churches talked about caring for the poor in their community while others talked about giving in order to get God's blessings, while others talked about reaching the world for Jesus and yet others discussed creating beautiful art.  While church leaders would see that as an expression of diversity within the body of Christ, illustrating how it takes all of us to do all that Christ commanded, Casper saw it as very confusing- as if we are offering mixed messages and we can't get along. That is a difficult one for me.  How do we address that?

As I read the book, I couldn't help but to think that Casper is more an artist than an engineer.  (see my previous blog post)  As such, he enjoyed worship services that were smaller and more intimate, that encouraged more dialog than just listening to a sermon, and displayed activity in the community.

Jim Henderson also offered a few closing observations- or should I say, a few difficult questions to ponder.  Do we give too much attention to our weekend worship services?  We know that it takes much more than just attending a service to fully participate in a local church and in faith in Jesus.  But if the weekend service is what outsiders will see first, are we giving the wrong impression that it is all about music and a preacher?  Finally, he suggests that we really think about how we describe our faith.  Sometimes our confidence comes across as arrogance with no room for questions.  We would be better to say, "I believe..." rather than "I know...."  And I believe that is a good word.
  
By the way, one of the things I appreciate about the book is that Jim Henderson did not try to bash megachurches, nor the church growth movement, nor any particular church tradition.  While he admitted his own biases (positive and negative), he sees the value in each church and even at times defends practices that he doesn't seem to agree with.  I appreciate his objectivity.