Why I Did This, Part 3: Scribes and Disciples

Early in my ministry, Ezra 7:10 became something of a theme verse for me:

“For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach his statutes and ordinances in Israel.”

Like Ezra, I devoted myself to study the Word of God, to do it, and to teach it to the people of God. In retrospect, if I’m honest with myself, I devoted myself more to the study and teaching, than to the doing.

To some degree, I was trained academically to be like Ezra, “a scribe skilled in the Law of Moses” (7:6), and teaching seems to be my area of giftedness—at least, if you believe the spiritual aptitude tests and the feedback of church members. And I still don’t know what to do with the sense that I am not using my primary gifts very much—one or two adjunct courses a year at Lipscomb University, and an occasional guest sermon at area churches—a reality that continues to distress my devoted wife.

In our new home in the city, we have a storage room above our garage. I built some shelves in it to hold my books, in case I ever needed access to them. Several months after we moved, I unpacked box after box of books onto those shelves—commentaries, Greek and Hebrew dictionaries and grammars, studies on New Testament backgrounds, resources for ministry—hundreds of books representing years and years of perfecting my craft as a scribe skilled in the Word. As I unpacked a long row of books on worship, I found myself beginning to weep. It seemed as though I was putting everything I had worked so hard to become on a storage shelf.

But this too was a moment of truth. Perhaps, of all the discoveries I have made about myself and my ministry, I think the most troubling is this: I have come to realize that I have lived my life more as a disciple of Ezra than a disciple of Jesus.

What does one say after that?

“Sorry” seems trite. But I am sorry. I must apologize to God for failing to do what was most important in my service of him. I must apologize to Jesus for misrepresenting his ministry—my ministry didn’t look like his ministry. I must apologize to the good people who looked to me as a spiritual leader. I believe I failed at the central task of a leader—I failed to follow Jesus myself.

Followers of Jesus do what Jesus did. I failed to do that. It’s just that simple.

Ultimately, I feel this may be the greatest failure of churches today, whether traditional or contemporary. We don’t really pay our scribes to be disciples, and so we aren’t very good at making disciples. We have focused our efforts on making believers in Jesus—either preserving and passing on the traditions of the faith, or evangelizing people to become believers. As a result, our efforts have produced a reality that I only recently have come to recognize: most churches are full of believers in Jesus, but not followers of Jesus. As Denver Moore (The Same Kind of Different as Me and What Difference Do It Make) observes, we’re a lot more focused on Bible studying than Bible doing. I helped perpetuate that reality.

For the past 3 years I have been trying to become what for 30 years I failed to be—someone who goes where Jesus went, helps those he helped, teaches what he taught, and is friends with those who were his friends. It’s not been easy—but it’s been good.

And it’s 30 years too late.

Why I Did This, Part 2: Prophets and Priests

I often felt my calling in ministry was to be something of a prophet.  Not in the sense of someone who could predict the future. And not in the sense of receiving visions from God (my ministry-related dreams were sometimes more akin to nightmares than ecstatic visions). I mean prophet in the sense of one who speaks the word of God to his people, calling them back to faithfulness and obedience.

I thought of prophets like John the Baptist calling people to repentance (though I never had the guts to call a congregation a “brood of vipers”!). I thought of Peter boldly declaring to the temple authorities that they could threaten him all they wanted, but he would not stop preaching Jesus. I thought of Jeremiah, who would have quit if it were not for the burning fire inside that compelled him to keep declaring what he knew was true. And I thought of many voices in that prophetic tradition, my father among them.

I wanted to be like them. I wanted their integrity.  I wanted their insight into the will of God. I wanted to understand God’s message to his people and faithfully proclaim it with the clarity and passion and courage that I saw in them.

I was fortunate never to face the persecution they faced. Unlike John, I never risked having my head cut off (though I lost it a few times). Unlike Peter, I never was scourged in the temple (though, like most preachers, I left a few church meetings feeling a little beaten up). Unlike my father, I never was fired by good Christian cowards moved more by fear than by the Spirit (though there were brothers and sisters along the way who lobbied for my exile).

The tensions I faced over the years were not because of crowds and kings out to silence the prophets. I think much of the tension was because of the role I was in as a full-time minister. I was a prophet who was paid to be a priest. We do not really hire preachers to preach like prophets. We hire ministers to serve the church.

I don’t mean to discount the role of the priest and minister. Priestly service was God-ordained ministry. They were charged to teach the people the Law of God; to lead the people in worship and praise; and, to call the people before God in confession and sacrifice to experience God’s forgiveness. But I felt I was called to be a preacher more than a worship leader.

For too many years I found myself saying, “I’m tired of trying to keep rich, white, suburban Christians happy.” Those are hard words. They always felt hard whenever I uttered them privately to colleagues in ministry—who always seemed to know exactly what I meant. They are hard words because those suburban Christians were truly my friends, my family. I loved them, and always will. They are hard words because—perhaps, especially because—I myself was one of those rich, white, suburban Christians. (I’m still a rich, white Christian, just not in the suburbs.) But they are also hard words because they speak a disturbing truth about the role of church leaders in our contemporary, consumer-driven church culture.

I have often heard it said that the role of a prophet was to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. But most folk come to church only wanting the first part (especially since we all like to believe that we are afflicted). I must say that comforting the grieving became one of the most meaningful parts of my ministry. But overall, maybe it was a mistake for someone who felt called to be a prophet to get a job as a minister.

Prophets in the Bible were rarely priests—Samuel, Ezekiel, maybe a few others. Typically, prophets stood outside the institutions of temple, synagogue, and monarchy. Their task was to challenge the priests, kings, rabbis, and even other popular prophets, calling them back to righteousness, mercy, and justice. Their role was to stand like Jeremiah in the temple and warn the people not to trust in the church rituals. To cry out like John in the desert that God can make Christians out of rocks. To declare like Isaiah on the Day of Atonement that God hates their worship services.

So how do you do that and at the same time fulfill your responsibility to maintain the rituals, build the sanctuaries, lead the services, and give the children of Abraham an encouraging word with which to go forth and face the afflictions of life in middle class America?

I don’t know. Maybe if I figure it out some day, I’ll return to the priesthood. In the meantime, I just need to figure out what to do with what’s left of Jeremiah’s heartburn.

Why I Did This, Part 1: Ministers and Mission

I think I was awakening to something during my ministry in Milwaukee in the early 90s, without fully realizing it. We were engaging the neighborhood school near our church, making advances in racial reconciliation, and also breaking down barriers between Christian fellowships. Looking back, I think I was experiencing missional impulses that were moving me beyond our church walls.

For reasons too complicated to sort out here (and I’m still not sure I could), we felt called to a church in Houston. It was a church with a great, and well-deserved, reputation for supporting many good works in the city. It was also a church with an ecumenical spirit and equality for women. But it was not growing, and I set myself to the task of trying to help the church make the changes necessary to attract the unchurched to hear the good news. It was the only way I knew.

For years I had studied church growth, and nearly all the experts said the same things—and most established churches struggled with their recommendations. We brought in a consultant, read books, and felt the pain of trying to change. But there was a revolution already happening in Christianity, and I was only beginning to become aware of it. America was becoming postmodern and post-Christian, and the theories of what this would mean for the church were becoming hot topics.  If I had understood these issues better, I think I would have understood better why I was struggling so much.

Many factors make it difficult for churches to change—tradition, natural human resistance to change, institutional leadership structures, increasing cultural irrelevance. But I am convinced now that the most significant issue we faced was a personal issue in my ministry.

After several years there, we moved back home to Nashville and I continued the mission of trying to lead an established church toward growth and outreach—with many of the same struggles. Then, with the help of Randy Harris and David Wray, we began a study of the “missional church” (interestingly, the church in Houston began the same study at about the same time). The issues facing churches in postmodern, post-Christian America began to appear in sharper focus, as did some of the more substantive changes we would need to make if we were truly to begin advancing on mission in the world—which is not the same as trying to attract people to the church building and church activities.

We began to see that “mission” is not just one of several things a church is supposed to do. Mission is the reason the church exists. God is on a mission in this world, and he created the church for that mission. As missional writers often say, “The church doesn’t have a mission; the mission has a church.” And being on mission doesn’t just mean trying to have the kind of church that will attract consumers to its services and programs. It means living on mission in the world—serving those in need and being friends to those who don’t know God.

But change was no easier even with a clearer vision. In fact, in some ways it seemed to become harder. We still faced issues of tradition, human nature, institutional leadership structures, and cultural irrelevance. But I began to realize that the issues churches face are deeper than could be addressed with program changes.

It began to become clear to me that a great deal of the problem was that too many of us in leadership in churches—including me—were not living missionally. I was a minister on a mission in the church, but I was not personally on mission in the world. How could I lead a church to become God’s people on mission in the world when I was not on mission myself?

My job was the church; my church was the church; and my friends were the church.

I had long lamented this reality as a barrier to my ability to reach unchurched people. But now those words were moving from an excuse to a conviction. I had to learn a new way of living in this world. Perhaps I could have done that and stayed in my role as a minister, but I don’t think so. 

We don’t really pay our ministers to be missionaries. Everything I was reading and hearing said I had to spend time where people are, in coffee shops and pubs rather than in a church office. But there were three problems with this. First, I hate coffee and beer…seriously! So what was I supposed to do in a coffee house or pub? I figured out I could drink hot chocolate at a Starbucks and fit in ok, but at the neighborhood pub there is no hot chocolate option.

Second, what church pays its preacher to hang out in pubs and have a drink with worldly people? Jesus ate and drank with tax collectors and sinners, but preachers don’t (and look at the reaction Jesus got from church folk!). Good brothers and sisters who want to believe that Jesus had matzos and grape juice at the Passover would not be ready for this!

Third, and maybe most importantly, I liked my church office. I liked being surrounded by my books, with my colleagues and friends just down the hall. I liked using it as a base to prepare to preach to Christians, to teach classes to Christians, to have planning meetings with Christians, to lead small groups of Christians, to visit Christians in the hospital, to comfort Christians at the funeral home, and to attend ministerial association meetings with Christian ministers. I knew how to do this. I liked it. I was pretty good at it. But I needed to leave it.

So we moved into the city and have been learning a new way to live. It has taken us to new experiences, but more importantly to new relationships. We built a house in a transitional neighborhood, one where the privileged and underprivileged live on the same streets. (We hadn’t planned on building, but we met the builders at a neighborhood meeting—they live here too.) Some of our neighbors are well off and are building new homes near their downtown offices. Others are on government assistance. We love the socio-economic and racial diversity of these neighbors working together to improve their community.

Now we have open houses for our neighborhood instead of for church members. We have our neighbors into our home, go to restaurants and events with them, and plant the community garden with them. I play trivia at the pub with the guys (I’ve learned to drink light beer…and have almost learned to like it). Our neighbors invite us out to eat and to their birthday parties. For the first time in 30 years, we were invited to a Christmas party at the home of an atheist—it’s the first time in 30 years that I have an atheist friend.

And that’s what bothers me most—30 years of missed opportunities to be like Jesus. I look back now and see so many chances I missed to be friends with people Jesus would have been friends with . . . but I was too preoccupied with being a Christian.

Why Did I Do This? A Brief Introduction

I haven’t blogged in a long time—probably too long. I return now with an attempt to answer a question I am frequently asked (and often ask myself). After 30 years of being a pulpit minister, I am now working with a nonprofit that serves inner city children and trying to plant a missional network of house churches in the city—so, why did I do this?

The list of preachers in my generation who are abandoning the pulpit to work with nonprofits and parachurch ministries seems to be growing, and it reads like a “who’s who” of preachers in the Churches of Christ. I can’t speak for them, though I have talked to enough of them to know that some aspects of my story are similar to some aspects of their stories. But this is not an attempt to describe this troubling trend. It is merely an attempt to share my own discoveries in the hope that it will be helpful to others trying to make sense of what is happening to the church in America and to their own congregations and ministers—and perhaps what is happening in their own discontent with American Christianity.

I’ve been wrestling with this for almost a year. I’m still not sure it’s ready to share publicly, but maybe it will never be. I have promised others that I would share some of these thoughts, so here they are in a series of three posts on “Ministers and Mission,” “Prophets and Priests,” and “Scribes and Disciples.”

Tent-making (or something like it)

This summer I have been looking for a part-time job I could do that would give me a more interactive presence in the community. Just as Paul had a job in the marketplace, many missional church planters look for work in the community. It increases opportunities to interact with people, and helps unbelievers relate with us better than they might with a "preacher." And since in a missional church plant you don't start up with a hundred or so in a Sunday service the way you would in an attractional church plant, you don't have very many people tithing either. Having a second job helps reduce salary costs for the church.
I was applying to become a substitute school teacher this fall, because that would connect me with principals and teachers and others in the central city. I may still do that in the winter. However, a door suddenly opened for me to serve as the interim executive director for Youth Encouragement Services, a wonderful Christian ministry to inner-city children. I have been serving on their board, and Judy and I have been planning to partner with them in our new church. So this was a natural fit that overlapped well with the work we are trying to do. I will serve about 30 hours a week for Y.E.S. for 4-6 months, and continue working at least 20-30 hours a week for the church.
We were excited and grateful for this surprising opportunity. The timing really seems to us a "God-thing." It makes me wonder what the next surprise will be!

What Does a Church Planter Do?—Part 2

I apologize for the lapse in posting blogs. I know it has left many of you with an empty space in your life. I'd offer excuses related to two weeks fighting gall bladder disease (I'm doing great now) and two weeks traveling in the Middle East without a computer (it was a great trip). But excuses won't fill that empty space, so let me try and offer something more interesting.

In an earlier post answering the question "what does a church planter do until he has a church?" I shared some of the many tasks on the to-do list of planters. However, the work we're involved in is about much more than task lists (I still wonder how the Apostle Paul functioned without project management software!). So, what else does a church planter do at this stage of the work?

One important part of any church planting effort is fundraising. That involves preparing materials that explain the mission we are called to. We are working on a new brochure that we hope to have ready to mail by the end of this month. It also involves meetings, calls, prayer, and planning. The fundraising has been going well, but there is still much to be done.

Another key part of planting a new church is connecting with various community leaders, non-profit organizations, and ministries already working in the community. I've met a couple of times with the manager of the housing project in our community. We are excited about the possibilities for serving the residents there. We've also connected well with the local elementary school and look forward to helping impact the lives of the children. We're getting to know a variety of charities and non-profits working in the downtown area. Recently I was invited to attend a breakfast for Conexion Americas, an impressive organization that promotes "the social, economic and civic integration of Latino families into the Middle Tennessee community." (I actually got to sit at the table with the mayor—but he was on the other side of the big table and we didn't get to talk.) Almost every week, I am told of another good organization or hard-working community servant I need to meet. The possibilities for cooperating to improve the lives of people are very exciting!

Most important, though, is connecting with the people who live where we will live. One reason we chose the Hope Gardens neighborhood is that it has an active neighborhood association, a very positive spirit of cooperation, and a growing level of social interaction including a community garden and regular gatherings in the neighborhood park. We've been attending the neighborhood meetings and gatherings and already know more people in our new neighborhood than we know in the neighborhood where we have lived the last 6 years. (That strikes me with both a sense of excitement for life in the days ahead, but also a sense of shame for the isolated way we experienced life in the suburbs.) Ultimately, our mission is to form relationships, to spend time with people as Jesus did, to be involved enough in their lives to know their needs and love them.

This summer we are actively looking for people to join us in this effort. We are networking with churches, campus ministries, and individuals to connect with Christians who have a heart for living as followers of Jesus in the city. Just yesterday we spent time with a young couple who came through town to learn more about the city and our work here. While it's too soon to know if they will move here, it is exciting to be with people who are excited about what God is calling us to do. Pray with us that God will connect us with people who have a passion for God's mission in this world.

What Does a Church Planter Do Before He Has a Church?

Most church goers probably think they have a basic idea of what a preacher does: sermon preparation, hospital visits, studying, staff meetings, elders meetings, counseling, planning, and so on. But, I know many of you must be wondering, "What exactly does a church planter do before he has a church?" There's no sermon prep when there are no sermons. No hospital visits or counseling until you have members. No staff or elders meetings.

So what does a church planter do (besides writing blogs about what he does)?

Planting churches has become something of a science. There are books and seminars and organizations and even academic programs devoted to the subject. They have the process worked out so thoroughly that there is actually web-based project management software that spells out everything that needs to be done from the decision to plant a church through the launch of the first public worship service. The various tasks and projects—all 286 of them!—are organized into various categories with important milestones marked along the way, all with due dates assigned and recommended reading. I even have a coach who just works with me on the tasks laid out in the software.

These tasks include training, such as going to "boot camp" (we went to two of them in January) and to the national church planting conference last month, visiting other church plants, and lots of reading (I wish I was a speed reader!). They include weekly phone conversations with my church planting coach, bi-weekly calls with the project management coach, and monthly meetings with a management team (representatives of the churches and ministries supporting us). The tasks include big projects like developing the church planting model we will use, networking with community leaders, designing promotional materials for fundraising and recruiting, and forming a prayer team. They also include all sorts of smaller but necessary tasks, such as filing incorporation papers with the state, getting a post office box, and buying an all-in-one printer/fax/copier.

So far, according to the project dashboard, I've completed 170 of the tasks (59.4%) and I'm only overdue on 10 (3.5%) of them (not too bad since I just lost 2 weeks to a conference and a cruise—and besides, 2 of them aren't really my fault!). That means I only have 116 tasks to go…

What Do You Need to Start a Church?

Judy and I are attending Exponential in Orlando. It's the largest conference on church planting in America. Thousands of church planters are here from all over the world. Some of the best known authors and speakers and church planters are teaching sessions on every aspect of church planting imaginable. Dozens of companies have displays advertising countless resources for small groups, web sites, financial management, portable equipment for churches meeting in schools and theaters, advertising resources, leadership development, and so much more. The stuff available to church planters is really amazing!

One of the most inspiring speakers I've heard at the conference is Louie Giglio. He has just planted a new church and said he really wants his church to be like the church in Acts 2—"devoted to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer…everyone was filled with awe…they shared with any who had need…they had the favor of all the people…the Lord added to their number daily" We all want our churches to be "Acts 2 churches."

Then he made this striking (but really obvious) observation:

"The Acts 2 church didn't know they were an 'Acts 2 church'!"

What kind of church did they want to be? There weren't any other churches for them to want to emulate. There were no premier churches or model church plants. No church planting conferences or books on how to plant a church.

So what did the "Acts 2 church" have to help them become "THE Acts 2 church"? Giglio pointed out three things they had:

1. They had the teachings of Jesus.
   
2. They were witnesses of the resurrection.
   
3. They had the Holy Spirit.
   

That was it. Those were the resources in their tool kit.—Jesus' teachings, the resurrection, and the Holy Spirit.

And Giglio went on to say that we have those same resources. We have Jesus' teachings (plus the letters of Paul, plus the treatise of the mystery author of Hebrews, and more). We have their eyewitness reports of the resurrection, and we have seen the resurrection power of God bring life to us and to others around us. And we have the Holy Spirit of God at work in us and in the world. It was an encouraging challenge to depend on God, not on our own abilities and resources. The same God who was at work in creating the Acts 2 church is still at work in the world.

Will Reunion Christian Community be an "Acts 2 church"? I don't know. But we have do have Jesus, the good news, and the Spirit…Maybe that's a good start.

It’s Official!

Today I filed the papers to incorporate our new church. We now are officially recognized as a church by the government. We just don't have a group of people who look like a church yet! But we trust that will come in time.

We also have a name, a post office box, a federal i.d. number, and within a few days we'll have our own bank account. All very official…but I wonder, "What would the apostle Paul have thought about having to go file papers in a government office in order to start a church in Corinth or Ephesus?" He might have been glad to have a government that would recognize his church rather than persecute it. On the other hand, he might have wondered what we have sacrificed in order to gain social and political respectability.

Our name is Reunion Christian Community. A little untraditional, I know, but that's kind of the point of planting a new church, isn't it? We're on a mission to reach people who aren't being reached by traditional churches, and who are turned off by the idea of "church." People associate "church" with buildings and institutions and denominations and dogmatic traditions (wonder where they got that impression?). The Greek word we translate today as "church" referred to an assembly or gathering of people in a community of faith. So we decided to use the more common word "community" rather than the churchy word "church."

The word "Christian" in our name acknowledges that we are followers of Jesus Christ. It connects us to our heritage in the Restoration movement and the nonsectarian conviction that we are "Christians only, but not the only Christians."

The word "Reunion" reflects what we believe is the central mission of the church—reconciliation. Paul says that "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ" and that he has given us the ministry and message of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18-20). God's plan was to bring all things to unity in Christ, to reconcile everyone (Jews and Gentiles) in one body through the cross, making peace between them (Eph. 1:9-10; 2:14-18). Christ's mission was to reunite people to God who had been alienated by sin and unbelief, and to reunite people to each other who were separated by hostility, prejudice, sectarianism, and legalism. Reuniting people to God and to each other is the mission of any community of Jesus' followers.

Reunion Christian Community—Bringing people together and to God.

So, what do you think?

The Return of the Blog: What's happening in our new journey

I'm finally back to blogging. (Do I hear cheering?...Maybe a few "it's about time" comments?...Is anyone reading this?) I will use this blog as one way to keep friends, supporters, and drive-by readers updated on how things are going with our new ministry.

For now, I will keep the name of the blog the same. I considered changing it to something related to the new church, but until the new church begins, this will continue to be my blog, rather than a church communication center. What better name than "What I Didn't Say Sunday"? Since I'm not preaching, everything I say is something I didn't say Sunday!

That in itself is a subject I get asked about all the time—"What's it like not preaching every week?" Hard question to answer. Since January 3, I have spoken one time. I have no other speaking appointments until Good Friday at the local Holy Week services and then not again until mid-July at an area church. This is the first time in almost 30 years that I have gone more than 3 weeks without preaching or teaching.

The first few weeks it was really strange. On Saturday nights I felt stressed even though I had nothing to be stressed about! No deadline. No sermon notes sitting in a folder beckoning me to come revise them one more time. No concerns about whether I should prepare more. No anxiety about whether the worship service would go as planned, bless most of the congregation, upset some, etc. No reason to have difficulty falling asleep, or to wake up in the night with a new thought, or to get up early to read over the lesson again…but I seemed to do all that anyway.

But I have to say that I've gotten used to it. I'm not used to living without constant deadlines. But the break has been nice. At least for awhile. (I'm about ready to start creating some kind of deadline every week just to feel normal!) And I've enjoyed the freedom to visit other churches and listen to other preachers. Something I have only been able to do a few times a year. We've enjoyed the experience—though Judy says every Sunday that she misses her favorite preacher (isn't she sweet!).

Well enough about me. Here's the news:

OUR HOUSE SOLD!!!! (Do I hear cheering? This time I should definitely hear cheering!)

We close on March 31 and will move our stuff into storage and stay at my parents' some, but mostly at Judy's mother's empty house. We'll be moving into Hope Gardens, the neighborhood we have targeted as our home base. We haven't found a suitable house in the neighborhood for hosting gatherings, so it looks like we'll build one on an empty lot there and be in place by July.

The Hope Gardens area is a great place for our ministry. It is probably the closest neighborhood to downtown—just north of the capitol, across the street from the Farmers Market. The neighborhood is very diverse ethnically and socio-economically. Just north across Jefferson Street is the Buena Vista neighborhood, which is also diverse, but with a larger low income population, including the Cheatham Place projects. Across Rosa Parks Blvd. is historic Germantown, an area that is now full of young professionals. The other side of the downtown business district are the upscale condos in the Gulch. All around us are opportunities to connect with disconnected city dwellers, serve underserved residents, and make an impact on the community.

I have been meeting some of the community leaders to learn the needs of the area and explore opportunities for service. Already we have begun helping out with an after-school Bible club at the local elementary school. And the public library invited me to read Dr. Seuss stories to inner city preschoolers at their monthly story time (that was too much fun to be considered work!). This Sunday morning we will meet residents of the neighborhood when they come out to get their community garden ready for spring.

The word of the day is "progress." We feel like we are moving in the right direction and good things are starting to happen.

But now I have to go pack boxes.

"10 Reasons to Partner in Planting Now" by Ed Stetzer

Ed Stetzer is a nationally recognized expert on church planting and church growth. His latest blog on partnering in planting churches is right on target with what we are launching out to do. Check it out at the following link:

"10 Reasons to Partner in Planting Now"

A New Church in Nashville?

By now, most of you have heard that Judy and I are planning to start a new church next year in Nashville's central city. (You can hear our announcement to our church and why we feel called to this ministry by clicking here and then on "Our Call to Plant a Church." I'm not going to repeat all of that message in this blog, so I hope you'll listen.) This past summer, Judy and I were presented with an opportunity to plant a missional church in Nashville. We've spent the past several months working through this decision. The most difficult part has been knowing the impact it will have on so many of our brothers and sisters at the Donelson Church of Christ who have been so supportive of our ministry here and to whom we have become so close. The fact that we will be in Nashville and that the Donelson Church will help support us, though, means that these relationships won't change in the way they would have if we were moving to another city.

This announcement naturally has raised lots of questions. I'll try and answer some of those here.

Does Nashville really need another church?

That's a great question. There are certainly a lot of churches in this city. Unfortunately, as in the rest of America, few churches are having much success at reaching people who don't believe in Jesus Christ. Most churches aren't growing. Of those that are growing, most are just moving members from other churches or reactivating people who used to go to church (an important ministry, but not quite the same as converting unbelievers into believers).

This summer Judy and I read a book on planting missional churches called The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. It had a powerful impact on us as we were considering this work. They cited several studies that showed that the church is not only not growing in America, we are actually losing ground…fast. About 100 million Americans have not been to any kind of church service in the past 6 months. In the 1990s, the number of adults who do not attend church nearly doubled. And the problem is getting much worse with young adults (aged 18-30), who are over three times more likely to have no religious affiliation than those over 65.

What we are doing in our churches (and in our personal lives) is not reaching unbelievers. They cited another study from 2001 showing that "half of all churches in America did not add one new person through conversion growth last year." The study also reported that "it takes the combined effort of eighty-five Christians working over an entire year to produce one convert."

And Judy and I had to be honest and say that we're part of the problem. I have been doing ministry for almost 30 years, but nearly all of that has been among the saved. I often lament that "my job is the church, my church is the church, and my friends are the church." I have little or no meaningful contact with unbelievers. Rarely do I have the joy of sharing Jesus with someone unless a church member introduces me to a friend who has questions—and that doesn't happen very often. We know we have to learn to live and serve in a different way.

And so do most churches. As Halter and Smay observe:

"Without blaming church leaders, the church at large, or denominations, we can at least acknowledge that something must change to reverse these trends. We need to start by doing some things we haven't been doing, and we must stop doing some things we have been doing."

We know that planting new churches is the most successful means of reaching new people in our culture. Our hope is that our ministry in this new church will find ways to reach people we have not been reaching. And perhaps we will learn some things that we can share with Donelson to help us all do more to reach those who live in our community.

What do we mean by a "missional" church?

The term "missional" refers to a church that is focused on God's mission to reconcile people to himself and to help those who are poor and suffering. This is the mission that brought Jesus into the world and shaped his ministry. God has a mission and created the church to accomplish that mission. So it is often said that "the church doesn't have a mission, the mission has a church." The term "missionary" implies that we are sending others out on the mission. "Missional" suggests that we should all be on God's mission in this world.

Our hope is to plant a church made up of people from various socio-economic, racial, and ethnic groups. We want to reach people who are moving back into the city and draw them into a fellowship of believers who are serving the needs of the poor who live just blocks away. Our focus will be much less on a Sunday worship service. Rather than try to attract people to a church building, we hope to partner with ministries in the city to serve children, unwed mothers, the homeless, and more. “Membership” will have less to do with attending a service and more to do with joining followers of Jesus in serving those in need.

Who are the church planting ministries working with us?

We are working with two church planting ministries who will help train us, coach us, and support us as we get started. As part of trying to determine whether we were being called to this work, Judy and I went through two assessments this summer, one with each of these church planting ministries. Those assessments were designed to evaluate whether we were gifted and ready to plant a church. Both assessments recommended us as church planters.

One of these, Mission Alive, is a ministry from Churches of Christ that helps plant missional churches. (Randy Harris helps provide theological training for church planters working with this ministry. I just attended their Theology Lab in Dallas.) The other is Stadia, a ministry from the independent Christian Churches. Partnering with such ministries helps church planters be more effective and successful, and also provides some accountability to assure supporters that the work is being carried out responsibly and faithfully.

Although the details are still being worked out, here's how the general process will work. A management or partnership team will be formed to help oversee the first 2 or 3 years of the work. This team will be composed of representatives from Mission Alive and Stadia, as well as from the churches who become partners in a network to support the work, and of course the church planter (me). This team provides advice, accountability, and assistance in making important decisions until the new church has it's own leadership and is self-supporting. An experienced church planting coach will also be assigned to work closely with us. And financial accounting will be provided as well. We won't be on our own!

You can learn more about Mission Alive at missionalive.org and more about Stadia at stadia.cc. A helpful article about church planting is "Encouraging Trends in Church Planting" by Dr. Philip Claycomb, the director of another church planting ministry called Nexus.

What are the networks of churches involved?

We hope to be supported by two networks of churches. A network is a group of churches committed to church planting, who partner with a church planting ministry to start new churches. The network churches provide financial support and may also provide volunteers for certain projects, or even a few members to help form a core to start the new church. The new church plants become part of such networks and continue to support the planting of more new churches.

We are working to form a network of Churches of Christ to partner with Mission Alive in this church planting. The elders of the Donelson Church of Christ have said they want to be part of this effort. In the weeks ahead, we will be talking with a number of other churches in the area to ask them to help us form a network of congregations committed not only to plant this church, but to continue planting other churches, that will plant more churches, and so on.

The other network is made up of several independent Christian Churches in Middle Tennessee. They have already been partnering with Stadia to plant churches in Murfreesboro, Mt. Juliet, and other towns. They have hoped that some Churches of Christ might join them in planting a church in Nashville. Christian Churches come from the same heritage as Churches of Christ, the American Restoration Movement begun by Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell (in fact, they call themselves, "Christian Churches and Churches of Christ"). They are virtually identical to Churches of Christ in every respect, except that they use instrumental music in their worship assemblies. In recent decades they have been more evangelistic and more committed to planting new churches.

An important part of this new ministry is the way it will unite our churches in the common mission of reaching the lost and serving the poor.

Where will the new church be located?

We don't know that yet. That decision will be based on some demographic research that we are just beginning and some strategic planning. We want to find a place that is not already targeted by other new church plants. An area like Germantown, just north of downtown is one possibility. People are moving into that neighborhood and refurbishing old homes or building new ones, while just a few blocks away are much poorer neighborhoods.

Our plan is to begin by forming a house church, and then more house churches. Eventually, we'll begin some kind of regular meeting together, probably in a rented facility. We don't plan to purchase a building, at least not any time soon.

What is next?

We are currently working out the details of the partnership between Mission Alive and Stadia. We're also beginning to meet with other churches to ask them to be part of the network. The church planting ministries tell us we'll need to raise about $300,000 to fund the effort for the first three years, so we'll continue to work to raise support from churches and individuals. We also have to choose the neighborhood where we will begin the work, and find a home there. As we meet with churches, we will also be looking for individuals and couples who may want to join us in this new work. At some point next year, we'd like to find another couple to actually work with us as church planters. In January, we'll attend a week-long training session with Mission Alive and another week-long session with Stadia.

There is much to learn, and much more to do. We are excited by the possibilities and the dreams of how God may use this new church to reach more people for Jesus and to serve the least of these his brothers and sisters.

We hope that you will pray for us, that you will consider supporting us, and even more importantly, that you will consider how God might use you to accomplish his mission where you are.