My hermeneutics professors in Seminary repeated this as mantra as we would study different passages in the Bible. “Context is King,” they would say, meaning the immediate paragraph, chapter and book would first determine the meaning of a word or phrase, long before a completely separate passage would.

What does context have to do with church planting? It has everything to do with it. When missionaries go out to different countries they learn the culture, the mannerisms, and the language. All of these can be summed up in one word: context. When we go plant churches, we cannot ignore the context that we plant in. The context of the city will look very different from the context of a small town. A suburban context has different cultural factors than a rural context. Even different neighborhoods hold different contexts than other neighborhoods in a city because of the demographic diversity that resides in them. Logan Square, for instance, is roughly 44% Hispanic, while West Town is about 77% White. These demographics will help shape the church that is planted there.

Hard data, like demographics, is great and essential to getting to know the context, but how, as the church, do we learn the language, the values, the hopes and dreams of those we want to reach? Or is it safe to assume that as Americans we all hold the same values? I don’t only believe that it is unsafe, but would be damaging to do so. We must go into our context, Logan Square, for us with the posture to learn from the people that are there. If we don’t, not only will we be seen as arrogant, we will not reach people for Christ there. We must learn to contextualize. So how do we do this?

Tim Keller, in his Redeemer Church Planting Manual, says we must be doing ethnographic research as well as demographic research. To do this, we must talk to people–not just do research on the internet. While demographics answers the “Who lives there?” question, ethnographics answers the “What are they like?” question. Keller gives several questions to ask people in order to get to know the people in your context: 

• What brought you to [this place] and how do you like living here?
• What are the dreams for your family?
• What kind of church does [this place] need? What would it look like?
• If you could ask God one thing, what would it be?
• What’s the toughest thing for you when you consider faith and spiritual things?
• What are people’s hopes, aspirations and pleasures?
• What are people’s greatest fears and problems?
• How could a new church serve your needs?
• How do people spend their free time? What do they do for fun?*
• How is this neighborhood unique from others near it?*
• Who is Jesus and what is his significance to you?*

It’s only through personal interactions with those who live, work and play in the neighborhood, do we get to know how to speak the heart-language of those who live, work and play there. We do this research because it gives us a vision for the neighborhood and people who live there; it reinforces the conviction that you and the gospel are needed by the city and its people; and it removes our blindness and gives us the conviction that we need this city and people to teach us much.

And finally, in praying through the answers to these questions, we seek to have God’s eyes for community to which we are called. Our goal is to love the city as God loves it, to recognize its brokenness and sin, and see how the Gospel heals and brings hope to the people who live there.

Stacey and I are headed up for a quick visit to Logan Square this weekend. We want to continually get to know our context and pray for it and learn from it. Please pray with us. Pray that God would give us a vision and hope for the neighborhood. Pray that we would be humble and learn from those there. Pray that would we be bold in asking these questions and truly hearing their answers.

*These questions I got from Dan Breed’s Fox Cities Church Plant Project.

What makes a church planter different than a [church] pastor?

This is really a good question. If we don’t, we may assume that there is no difference, or that the differences are very minute?  There are certainly a lot of overlaps. Scripture doesn’t distinguish with a list; in fact, we affirm lay leaders and professional pastors need to have lives that reflect 1 Timothy 3:1-7. But ultimately what sets lay leaders from pastors is what sets pastors from planters apart: gifting and calling.

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ”

Ephesians 4:11-12

One is no better than another. We need all for the “building up” of the body of Christ.

So what specifically sets apart a church planter? Ed Stetzer lists several qualifications that planting organizations and denominations look for in his book Planting Missional Churches.

1. Visioning capacity–the ability to imagine the future, to persuade other persons to become involved in that dream, and to bring the vision into reality.
2. Intrinsically motivated–that one approaches ministry as a self-starter, and commits to excellence through hard work and determination.
3. Creates ownership of ministry–one instills in other a sense of personal responsibility for the growth and success of the ministry and trains leaders to reproduce other leaders.
4. Relates to the unchurched–develops rapport and breaks through barriers with unchurched people, encouraging them to examine and to commit themselves to a personal walk with God.
5. Spousal cooperation–a marital partnership in which church planting couples agree on ministry priorities, each partner’s role and involvement, and the integration and balance of ministry with family life.
6. Effectively builds relationships–the skill to take initiative in meeting people and deepening relationships as a basis for more effective ministry.
7. Committed to church growth–congregational development as a means for increasing the number and quality of disciples.
8. Responsiveness to the community–abilities to adapt one’s ministry to the culture and needs of the target area residents.
9. Uses the giftedness of others–equips and releases other people to minister on the basis of their spiritual giftedness.
10. Flexible and adaptable–adjusts to change and ambiguity, shifts priorities when necessary, and handles multiple tasks at the same time. This leader can adapt to surprises and emergencies.
11. Builds group cohesiveness–one who enables the group to work collaboratively toward common goals, and who skillfully manages divisiveness and disunifying elements.
12. Demonstrates resilience–the ability to sustain himself emotionally, spiritually, and physically through setbacks, losses, disappointments, and failures.
13. Exercises faith–translates personal convictions into personal and ministry decisions and resulting actions.

A pastor may have some of these and even all of these giftings, but a church planters must possess all and to a higher degree than one who is called to the non-planting pastorate. No. 12, for example: a pastor certainly has to be resilient to the congregant who doesn’t like the pace of the hymns sung on Sunday–and never does–but a planter has to be faced with the reality that though he may have been good friends with a neighbor, gym partner, drinking buddy, that person may never come to church after a year, or maybe two or three. But the planter loves him just the same.

Oh and no. 14, in my case at least, have a beard.

David T. Olson, director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, provides ten reasons to plant churches in his book The American Church in Crisis:

1. New Churches lower the age profile of the American church, increase its multiethnicity, and better position the whole church for future changes.
2. New churches provide synergistic benefits to established churches. Research shows that denominations that many strong churches have more healthy, growing, established church than those who plant few churches.
3. The continued growth of new churches will extend up to 40 years after their start. The grown that occurs in years 10 to 40 is critical for creating a strong base of churches for the future. The mainline denominations have lost the influence of a complete generation of new churches.
4. New churches provide a channel to express the energy and ideas of passionate, innovative young pastors. Church planting encourages the development of expansionist gifts of ministry and leadership. Denominations that plant few churches unintentionally focus on training pastors in stabilizing gifts. A denomination needs both stabilizing and expansionists gifts to be both healthy and growing.
5. New churches are the research and development unit of God’s kingdom. New churches create most of the current models and visions for healthy church life. 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.
6. New churches are the test laboratory for lay leadership development. Because top lay leadership positions are usually already filled in the parent church, new churches provide a new group of emerging lay leaders the opportunity to grow and develop as primary leaders. 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.
7. New churches are historically the best method for reaching each emerging new generation. While many established churches have the ability to connect with the younger cohort, each generation also seems to need their own new type of churches that speak the gospel with their own cultural values and communication style.
8. New churches are the only truly effective means to reach the growing ethnic populations coming to America. Every people group needs to hear the gospel in a way that makes sense to their culture. It is difficult for established churches to become diverse. Church planting can effectively create both ethnic-specific and multiethnic congregations.
9. 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.
10. Because the large majority of Americans do not attend a local church, many more new churches are needed. In 2005, 17.5 percent of Americans attended a local church on any given Sunday. Seventy-seven percent of Americans do not have a consistent connection with an orthodox Christian church. The best and most effective way for the Christian church to keep up with population growth is to start new churches.

Last Wednesday morning, I awoke early to hit the road and head to Naperville.

Not quite Chicago, but close. I was headed there for a church planters connection conference put on by the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America). From noon on Wednesday till noon on Friday, I listened and interacted and prayed with church planters, planting-minded pastors. We discussed church planting strategies and the deep need for prayer to run through all our work. To state plainly prayers is not just a devotional practice, something that we do while we brush our teeth or run (I’m preaching to myself here), but it is the work of ministry and especially church planting. I remember listening to a talk from Tim Keller years ago when he listed out the top 5 or so things a planter must do. Prayer wasn’t one of them. At the end of the list, he took a step back and acknowledged his “oversight.” But, he said, if he relegated prayer to just another of the things one must do in order to plant a church, then he was downgrading it. Prayer is the work of planting. It’s priority goes well before any written list. It is essential and primary and runs through every aspect of church planting.

Please join with me in praying. We need a lot of it.

What are we praying for you ask?

Well, at the end of my time in Naperville, I continued in to Chicago to spend time with my friends and walk and pray the neighborhoods I was considering: West Town, Logan Square and Lincoln Square. I lived in West Town just before I was exiled to St. Louis. I grabbed a sandwich at Fiore’s, the Italian deli across the street from my old apartment before heading over the Dominic’s roof to eat it and stare at the skyline. I met up with Mark Bergin, pastor at The Painted Door, and we talked about West Town. I really enjoyed our time, but left thinking maybe West Town isn’t for me.

After an evening with friends, I ate at Lula Cafe in Logan Square with more friends and we talked about planting and my vision for Chicago. I had a few minutes left on my meter, so I walked Logan, took photos and prayed. I wasn’t too sure of what I should be praying for, except that God would give me eyes to see the neighborhood clearly, to see it as He sees it. I saw a lot of dogs, some couples walking to get their morning coffee, and a few parents with their young children. But mainly a lot of dogs and fixies.

I headed north to Lincoln Square. Parking halfway between the Brown Line and the expansive Welles Park, I walked along Lincoln Ave. Not as many gates infront of houses, two and three generations of families walking together. Many, many, many strollers. Youth baseball throughout the park. As I stood and watched the game and prayed. It occurred to me that we would need kids to reach this neighborhood. Don’t get me wrong, we want kids, but we should have had them a couple years ago.

On to Binny’s. Tasting and thinking and praying. Wishing my wife was able to be with me. Wondering what ministry would be like in any of these neighborhoods.

I was exhausted.

I decided it was nap time.

I don’t know how to explain how naps usher in the Spirit; I don’t have a fleshed out theology on this point. However, when I woke up it was clear to me that God was calling me to Logan Square.

Pray for Logan Square.

Pray for us as I begin to vision and write up a plan.

Pray that the Gospel would be out in front of us, moving and stirring the hearts of those who need the Gospel for the first time and the forty-first time.

Pray that God would fund his mission and work in Logan Square (right now, I’m estimating this around $450,000 for 4 years).

"A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet."

Chicago may be the published, formal name to the great city to the north, but it has many nicknames, both affectionate and unaffectionate. Here are a few:

1. “Windy City”–in reference to it’s politician’s speech patterns, but reflective of the weather too.
2. “City That Works”–as known to former Mayor Richard J. Daley. However, Chicago was founded on manual, unskilled labor in the 1830s, 40s, & 50s.
3. “The Second City”–Was a derogatory term for the city in the 1950s in a New Yorker article; perhaps second to NYC. I always understood it to be a referent to the rebuilding of the city after the Great Fire of 1871. One dark night, when the folks were all in bed, Misses O’Leary lit a lantern in the shed…
4. “The Most American City”–Perhaps because of its blue collar heritage, but I can’t find a source, other than Pacyga’s Chicago: A Biography pictured above.
5. “City of Big Shoulders”–Formerly the City of Broad Shoulders, so called by Carl Sandberg in his 1916 poem “Chicago”
6. “The Jungle”–After Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel
7. “Hog Butcher to the World”–Perhaps the impetus for Upton Sinclair’s novel, but mentioned in Carl Sandberg’s poem.
8. “Paris of the Midwest”–What Daniel Burnham and his “Chicago” plan were after.
9. “City on the Make”–referred to by Nelson Algren in his 1951 love poem to the city.
10. “City of Neighborhoods”–There are over 200 distinct neighborhoods in Chicago.
11. “Sweet Home Chicago”–sung by Robert Johnson, immortalized by the Blues Brothers.
12. “Chi-Town” or “Chi-City”–as Kanye so affectionately refers to it.
13. “My kind of town, Chicago is”–Frank Sinatra croons.

More recently, Huff Post has reported two studies calling Chicago both the Most Corrupt City in America and the Most Segregated City in America. The corruption in politics has cost the city nearly $500 million; see Rod Blagojevich. And according to a census survey, even though Chicago has experienced the second largest decline in segregation, it is still the most segregated city according to the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. (Actually reading the study though, points out that Detroit is the most segregated. St. Louis came in fourth.)

Perhaps most appropriate for the Kingdom work to be done there, Chicago is known as “City in a Garden” which is a translation of the Latin on the city seal Urbs in Horto.

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
(Revelation 22:1-2)

History: A young nation came into it’s 46th year as the sovereign state of the United States of America, the year was 1820. At this point in our nation’s youthful appearance–50 was the new 18, as far as national ages go…–there was approximately 1 church per every 875 Americans. However, during the years 1860-1906, Protestants expanded along with the West. They planted a new church for every 350 people, resulting that in 1900, we had 1 church for every 430 Americans. Obviously this is increased the amount of attendance and involvement by Americans in the local church, so much so that, in 1916, 53% of the US population were “religious adherents” up from 17% at the founding of the nation (1776). ¹

At this point though, church planting ceased to increase as it had done over the last century. After WW1, older, established churches which dotted the towns across the nation resisted the addition of new churches in to their “neighborhoods.” We have seen the results of this resistance. Not only is church membership down in Mainline congregations–those that most heavily impeded and apposed new churches–but many churches have had to close their doors in the recent decades. Numbers-wise: 20.4% of Americans attended a church (Catholic, Mainline, or Evangelical) on any given weekend in 1990 and dropped to 17.5% in 2005. Evangelical attendance has only slightly declined: 9.2-9.1% over those 15 years. However, in the same years we saw a net population growth of 52 million people. Illinois alone declined 7.2% in church attendance (Catholic, Mainline, or Evangelical) from 2000-2005. In fact, every state has declined in church attendance between 2000 and 2005. ²

I called the 1st, 2nd, and 47th Wards of Chicago today to do a quick survey of how many churches were in each ward. Each ward contains an average of 56,000 people and 25 churches. This is only 1 church per 2240 residents of these wards. Only the 47th Ward knew of 2 churches that were under 15 years old and both of them have been planted in the last 3 years. The median church size in America is 75 congregants with the average being 185. There are approximately 25 churches in these wards, then that means that between 1,875 and 4,625 out of 56,000 are going to church each weekend. Percentage-wise that’s 3-8%. That’s less than unemployment (8.3% February 2012 national average)!

What in the world!

#FAIL.

Jonah comes to mind. Are we so wrapped up in our own agendas that our hearts don’t break for the lost cities of the world?

But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” And the LORD said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 person who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” (4:8-11)

Conclusion: we need more churches in the great cities of the world.

Some initial research shows that new churches in Chicago seem to be few and far between. While churches on the North Side number into the hundreds, there are only about 16 churches that under 15 years old. Many of them are going multisite, but the established church (over 15 years) to new church (less than 15 years) is still close to 15:1 in West Town (Ukrainian Village), 35:1 in Logan Square, and 28:1 in Lincoln Square. This seems obvious, but the majority of the established churches are Catholic, then Baptist, then charismatic. Very few are Reformed in their doctrine. In fact, there are approximately only one Reformed church in each of those neighborhood areas, mainly A29, but also PCA. And again, no–zip, zero, none, nada–EPC churches.

This means only about 3% of the churches in these neighborhoods are new churches. According to the Redeemer Church Planting Manual, 33% of a cities churches must be under 20 years old for the number of Christians to be growing in a city. And if an organization is planting at least 2-3% each year, then at best they will be maintaining their numbers, but most likely declining.

If God truly loves the city of Chicago, as I firmly believe He does, then we must be planting more churches and making more disciples of Jesus Christ to affect long term change in the fabric of Chicago.

See how I mapped out the areas and churches below:

View Churches Chicago in a larger map

Sunday, March 25th: I was sick. After driving 6 hours from Milwaukee back to St Louis, eating at a Pastor’s house, I got home and a 103˚ fever struck me. I crawled into bed fully clothed and with all the blankets possible by 10:30–very early by my standards. A little after midnight, my fever broke and I fell back asleep praying for those in my cityLife and for Stacey and my future professionally. I felt I heard God say to me, I’ll show you some progress for your future call.

Wednesday, March 28th: I had a conversation with a pastor that was looking to hire an assistant pastor. It was a no nonsense discussion that I was not going to be hired for that position. However, he said, if I wanted to talk about church planting in Chicago–my dream–that would be a completely different discussion. Essentially, he said, “I can’t promise you anything, but if you come back in 2 months with a plan and people ready to support said plan, we could see what God would do with that.”

Immediately, my heart lept and as the past week has unraveled, I’ve been dreaming and praying and talking about the possibilities of planting in Chicago. I am going to plan as if God is calling me there and see what doors He would open on the way.

There are three neighborhoods that I am looking for potentiality: Logan Square, Ukrainian Village, and Lincoln Square. They all have their positives and negatives. Lincoln Square is the most established of the neighborhoods with long-standing residents, young families and young professionals together. They also have a couple of new church plants happening there already. Logan Square is one of the most up and coming neighborhoods in Chicago. Hipster would describe Logan well. Young professionals dominate, but my initial impressions give a less stable environment to plant in. However, there are a number of churches planting in Logan at this time. Ukrainian Village is where I lived after graduating and is a pretty good balance between the other two neighborhoods and only one other church plant is on the east side of that area.

Fun Fact: There is no Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) presence in the city of Chicago. Why not plant the first?

What’s next?

First and foremost: Prayer. Please pray with me where God would lead in this endeavor. I know church planting is a big endeavor and a big task and calling is laid out before me. I want to be open to where God would lead rather than my own desires and wishes. I want to be open to this not happening and be able to yield to God’s will in this. I want this to happen desperately. I want join in the endeavor God is already at work doing redeeming and restoring His city called Chicago. Please pray with me about how you or those you know can be involved.

Second: Research. Lots of my hours will be caught up in the exercises listed out in the Redeemer Church Planting Manual. Many of my finds will be listed here. Please continue to check in and read more about the city that God loves.

Second B: Contacts. I’ll be calling, grabbing coffee, emailing, drinking beer, eating and any other activity I can find to do to network with pastors and churches around Chicago. If you or anyone you know would be willing to sit down and dream about what God would have for the city of Chicago, please feel free to contact me. I’d love to sit down with you.

In 1909, Daniel Burnham put forth The Chicago Plan together with Edward H. Bennett. It was a three year undertaking to strategically just to plan proposed improvements for the city, including the lakefront, highways, parks system, and civic and cultural centers. Many of those plans can be seen in the modern day Chicago. In honor of what Burnham proposed, I will be referring to this church planting endeavor under the same name, firmly believing that the Gospel is the only way Chicago will ever be fully redeemed.

From Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, by Eric Metaxas:

“Who stands fast?” he asked. “Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God–the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”

This was how Bonhoeffer saw what he was doing. He had theologically redefined the Christian life as something active, not reactive. It had nothing to do with avoiding sin or with merely talking or teaching or believing theological notions or principles or rules or tenets. It had everything to do with living one’s whole life in obedience to God’s call through action. It did not merely require a mind, but a body too. It was God’s call to be fully human, to live as human beings obedient to the one who had made us, which was the fulfillment of our destiny. It was not a cramped, comprised, circupsect life, but as life lived in a kind of wild, joyful, full-throated freedom–that was what it was to obey God.

…one must be more zealous to please God that to avoid sin.  (p. 446)

Scott Wagner

My good friend, Brad Edwards, and I have been doing a lot of projects together over the past year. Photos for City Church‘s website, videos for GreenTree Community Church–that sort of thing. He’s really a talented brother and a great guy to work with.

On a recent video shoot, he grabbed this shot of the guy we were interviewing, but left it on my card. So I played around with it a bit. A great B&W preset that I have in Lightroom, a little fill light and pumped up the yellows a touch. I think we make a pretty good team.

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