Top 10 Reasons to Plant Churches

Taken from: David T. Olson, The American Church in Crisis, 155-156.

10. New Churches lower the age profile of the American church, increase its multi-ethnicity, and better position the whole church for future changes.

9. New churches provide synergistic benefits to established churches. Research shows that denominations that plant many strong churches have more healthy, growing, established churches than those who plant few churches.

8. The continued growth of new churches will extend up to 40 years after their start.

7. New churches provide a channel to express the energy and ideas of passionate, innovative young pastors.

6. New churches are the research and development unit of God's kingdom. Healthy cultural adaptations and theological vitality occur more often in a denomination that excels at church planting, because the ferment of new ideas and ministry solutions is more robust.

5. New churches are the test laboratory for lay leadership development. In new church plants that do well, most lay members report that being part of the beginning of the new church was one of the defining spiritual events in their life.

4. New churches are historically the best method for reaching each emerging new generation.

3. New churches are the only truly effective means to reach the growing ethnic populations coming to America. Church planting can effectively create both ethnic-specific and multi-ethnic congregations.

2. New churches are more effective than established churches at conversion growth. Studies show that new churches have three to four times the conversion rate per attendee than established churches.

1. Because the large majority of Americans do not attend a local church, many more new churches are needed. In 2005, 17.5% of Americans attended a local church on any given Sunday. The best and most effective way for the Christian church to keep up with populations growth is to start new churches.

Driscoll Uses Dell


Deerfield, IL.

Mark Driscoll may not be as hip as was once thought.

Driscoll, the co-founder of Acts 29 and lead pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA, was reportedly seen using a Dell laptop at the A29 Boot Camp recently held at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. During the fifth session, led by Mark Dever, Driscoll sat in the back of the A. T. Olson Chapel working on a Dell laptop.

Long assumed that someone of Driscoll's "cool" factor-- which goes up to eleven-- would be a Mac user, many of the Boot Camp participants were floored.

"I mean, I use an HP, but that's just because I don't consider myself as cool as Driscoll," stated a despondent Joe Thorn. "I just don't know how he's able to reach the today's culture on a Dell."

The Reformissionary, Steve McCoy, was unaware of Driscoll's Dell using tendancies. "I had always looked up to the guy, but now, I, I . . ." His eyes glistened as he was unable to finish his sentence.

Other higher-ups in the Acts 29 Network were not as shocked.

"Yeah, I knew he used a Dell, but I never thought he would in public. It has really devastated many of our church planters," stated Darren Patrick, pastor of The Journey in St. Louis.

Many there, though, seemed completely unaware of Driscoll's downfall, as they lined up to talk to him after Wednesday's session. Most were focused on how to balance their family life and church planting, rather than the real issues.

Quick to leave after answering the church planters' wives' questions, the only thing he had to say was, "Dude, I got a Dell."

The reported image of Driscoll on a Dell has not been found.

Friday Photo Late


Some old photos that I was finally able to get around to processing. These are from Thanksgiving. My cousin and I were able to go around Newton and get some shots of the grain mill that's been there forever. The first is the grain mill inverted and the second is my shadow.

Dual Citizens, Pt. 7

Dual Citizens

Introduction
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Conclusion

I have tried to show in this paper that we need not a new way to think about the Church’s interaction with society, but a different one. Niebuhr’s typology no longer serves us adequately, because it is based in Christendom. First Peter, however, shows us that we live with a dual citizenship. We are both elect and exiled. We have an eschatological hope that is effected now in the communities in which we live outside of church walls. Our hope has public ramifications. I want to end with a final picture.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns us to be salt. He says, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.”[1] This is the clearest picture to me. In my apartment, I have a ramekin filled with salt on my counter. It is always sitting there, ready so I can grab it when I need to season my food. I make sure it is always full. But with it sitting on the counter, it has no usefulness to me. It is only once I put it in what I am cooking when it becomes useful. As it dissolves in the boiling water or clings to the leaves of my salad, it becomes unperceivable to my eye, but it has a profound effect in the food that I eat. Since I began properly seasoning my food, I can immediately tell when something I eat is not properly seasoned. It lacks flavor and is not as dynamic as it could be.

It is the same for us as Christians. If we are not in and amongst society, we are not useful. We can no longer stay within our church walls, but we need to be in our communities living out our eschatological hope for the good of the city.

Bibliography

Achtemeier, Paul J. 1 Peter. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996.

De Neui, Paul. “Christian Communitas in the Missio Dei: Living Faithfully in the Tension Between Cultural Osmosis and Alienation.” Ex Auditu 23 (2007).

Legrand, Lucien. The Bible on Culture. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2004.

McKnight, Scott. 1 Peter. The NIV Application Commentary. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996.

Metzger, Paul. “Christ, Culture and the Sermon on the Mount Community.” Ex Auditu 23 (2007).

Michaels, J. Ramsey. 1 Peter. Word Biblical Commentary. Waco: Word Books, 1988.

Niebuhr, H. Richard. Christ and Culture. New York: Harper & Row, 1956.

Volf, Miroslav. “Soft Difference: Theological Reflections on the Relation Between Church and Culture in 1 Peter,” Ex Auditu 10 (1994): 16-27.

Winter, Bruce W. Seek the Welfare of the City. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994.

[1] Matthew 5:13.

Dual Citizens, Pt. 6

Dual Citizens

Introduction
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Part 6

What Peter does not call the believers to is separation. Throughout 1 Peter, he is calling them to a different style of living—one that does not move them out of society, but that changes the way in which they move through society. In 5:8, Peter explains that it is the devil who is our adversary and he is to be resisted, not society. Evil is not some impenetrable force outside the walls of the Church, but is personified in the devil as a lion that prowls around looking for someone to devour. Further, the believers are equally admonished to resist the desires of their own flesh. Ernst Troeltsch stated that, throughout history, believers typically operate in one of three ways: as a church, a sect, or a mystic.[1] He argues that the church operates out of grace, while a sect operates out of law. The church affirms the world, while a sect separates from it. He’s arguing that believing the Gospel has social implications.[2] On the basis of his thesis, not wanting to define the church as Troeltsch does, Miroslav Volf calls it a “soft difference.” Speaking of the Church, he writes:

It looked as if she did not forge her identity through rejection of her social environment, but through the acceptance of God's gift of salvation and its values. She refused to operate within the alternative “affirmation of the world” versus “denial of the world,” but surprised people with strange combinations of difference and acculturation. She was sure of her mission to proclaim the mighty deeds of God for the salvation of the world, but refused to use either pressure or manipulation. Rather, she lived fearlessly her soft difference. She was not surprised by the various reactions of individuals and communities among whom she lived because she was aware of the bewildering complexity of social worlds in which values are partly the same, partly different, sometimes complementary, and sometimes contradictory. And so it gradually became clear that the child who was born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead into a living hope was not a sect at all. The unusual child who looked like a sect, but did not act like a sect, was a Christian community….[3]

A soft difference does not fully reject the culture around them, nor does it fully embrace it. Rather it is a difference that is lived out without fear of others living out their lives and a trust in the God that has elected them to their eschatological hope. Volf continues, “For people who live the soft difference, mission fundamentally takes the form of witness and invitation. They seek to win others without pressure or manipulation, sometimes even ‘without a word’ (3:1).”[4]

Volf brings up another key observation about the Christians in 1 Peter—they are to be a community. This may not be as shocking to us as it should be. We all affirm that the Church is made up of many people from all social strata—whether locally or globally. Throughout 1 Peter, he addresses them with the second person plural u`mw/n. Peter never addresses them as individuals, but corporately. Their lives are bound to one another in their election. Their conduct is not an individual one, but one that is thoroughly communal.

So what does all this mean for us living at the end of Christendom? First Peter teaches us that we need to change our model of Church. Practically, though, what does this mean? It means we need to inform the people who they are in Christ, what that means and how that affects their life. Simply put: preach the Gospel. Too many churches are caught up in getting people in the door with snazzy sermon topics and programs that they neglect the message of redemption found in the person of Jesus Christ. Peter preached in such a way as to affect his readers’ identity. He called them elect and exiles not to entertain them, but to teach them who they have become in Christ. We must preach the new identity our congregations have in Christ. Further, we need to move away from programs that keep people inside the walls of the Church. The Church is not programmatic or structural, it is people. Grace Chicago, the church that I am apart of, purposely does not fill its members’ schedules with church-bound activities, so that they can live their hope out in their communities.

Living in the communities also means seeking the good of them. This is what Jeremiah 29:4-7 instructs. Peter uses another word: blessing.[5] Desire and work for community improvements. Desire that others have adequate housing, schools, social support. I hesitate to give specific examples, because of the variety of communities that abound. But let it suffice to say that whatever you desire for yourself and your family, should also be desired for others.

[1] The mystic category, not being a part of the discussion, will be left untouched.

[2] Volf, 15, 16.

[3] Volf, 27.

[4] Volf, 24.

[5] 1 Peter 3:9.