Compassion By Design

Every once in a while it is important to stop and get some perspective on our work.  Like modern day pioneers, those who are working to expand the Kingdom through church planting are truly leaving it on the field through their faith-filled labors.  Church planters in their cities, network leaders, coaches and trainers are laboring tirelessly to bring life change to those who have yet to know His grace.  Pause with me for a breath today.  We need to remember that not only are we engaged in a special part of God’s mission, but we are products of that mission.  Someone reached us, and what brings us to this work is the imprint of the Gospel on our own hearts.  We, like those we win, are products of His grace–first imprinted with his grace and then joined to His cause.

If anything should characterize the churches we plant and the interactions we have with all those we touch, it should be this realization that we ourselves are the fruit of the mission.  Before it moved us to reach out to others, it first changed our own hearts.  So we first carry this message not as professional promoters, technical advisors, or even skilled leaders, but first as those converted.  We should pause to remember the moments when we first came to know Him, and came to understand his grace.  Some of us do it regularly in the moments of communion, others as we worship in our tradition.  But we cannot afford our work to crowd out the fact of our own personal transformation– a process that is continuing. 

This fact makes our army different.  We are not hired hands, we are those who have first been changed, and now seek to share this immeasurable love with others.  We bear this imprint of Grace on our hearts, and should never cease to remember how we were enlisted in this army, first as those transformed by unsurpassed mercy, and then as those called to humbly to bring this imprint of Grace to others.  They too will be changed and called to join the mission.  It is this deep thankfulness and fellowship that we now share with our Creator that characterizes and move our work forward.   

check out the new needs assessment for planters  http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html

What a view from the room here in Estes Park, CO.  I have been enjoying time with the church planting leaders of the Christian Churches and getting a real education on state of the art planting.  So much has been learned about how to get planters ready and how to support them through effective networks, since my early Bible College days when I was watching and listening to planting pioneers like Ralph Moore in CA.  Significant effort goes into planter selection and preparation–but we can miss an important opportunity to start truly missional churches if we spend the entire pre-launch period focusing on mechanics.  I am convinced that this period can also yield some incredibly important outcomes in the depth of planter insight into culture, the growth of a larger plant team, and the development of credibility and large numbers of community relationships. 

 How can the pre-launch produce all these outcomes? The answer is–When the planter has tools that take the focus off of mechanics and onto relationships and understanding culture. Typically we use demographic and lifestyle reports, but that can become just another task on the checklist. The use of a needs assessment as a first step in a larger strategy for pre-launch community service,  can help the planter toward these important missional outcomes.  Traditional needs assessments come from the domain of professional social workers and public agencies, but the essential work of a needs assessment is about making people connections in a listening mode.  Compassion by Design has reworked the best parts of a needs assessment so that it allows a church planting team to spend intentional time building insights into the culture  and making people connections.  The team part is important–although the reformated needs assessment can be completed just by the planter and spouse, engaging the entire team in this process will bring them all along as community connectors.

 Some very important things happen in the hearts of the team as they are interviewing and surveying the community–not only do they meet potentially hundreds of new people in a short amount of time, but they also hear the heartaches and values of the community in which they are working to plant.  This insight allows the ministries and (hopefully) community service efforts of the church planting team to be more clearly focused on felt needs in the community, and along with a number of other benefits, introduces the church to the community in a way that says “we are here to serve” in a very credible way.   A needs assessment approached properly can help propel the new church to a much healthier start.

Check out the new needs assessment kit at http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html

The best hope for a missional future for the American Church is that every church plant is birthed with a missional character.   Much progress is being made in developing the practice of helping churches become reproducing- this is a vital, although it does not address the missional footprint of the new church itself.  Missional new churches connect with their communities in an incarnational way, enculturating the gospel in the life of the community. It must, in the words of Rick Rusaw, becoming a church that speaks “from the inside” of the community rather than from the outside.   This has to be more than just a new set of programs that meet community needs. Missional churches have members that connect to the community personally, they don’t just run programs.   How do we instill this missional character in the life of the new church?    Missional churches aren’t launched, they are born.  The missional character can’t be purchased, ordered from an audio/visual supply company, or designed by a graphic artist— it has to be cultivated in the hearts of the core team, and the early history of the church.  The mission, has to be alive in the hearts of the core team before it can become foundational to the DNA. We must be careful that we don’t just win people to the mission of new church, when in reality the mission is to make disciples—win our culture—win our community.    There may be some “re-discipling” that is needed in the lives of many of our core team members.  If they don’t have a lifestyle of wining those around them, we need to start by helping them to develop a passion for the lost and the relational and evangelistic tools to touch those around them. We must first help them to become missional.  What are some of the steps that we can take to build this missional heart into the early workings of our team?    My Next Blog entry will discuss some key initial steps including community needs assessment and developing a track record of service. Check out the new needs assessment at http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html

For those who are committed to building up the health and ministry capacity of the church, we have to look ahead to see where the church is going.  If we are building toward a healthier more vital future then at least a glimpse of that future road is critical.  Since we are building on a solid foundation that includes the authority of scripture and a rich history of faith life we can freely look ahead to see what forms will change, without compromising our foundation. 

Predictions about the future  of the American church are somewhat disconcerting, if we are just committed to preserving the current form of local church expression.  Several authors believe that we will see a decline of 50% market share by local churches by either 2025 or 2050.  I am not so concerned with form– I think history proves that the life of the church can be expressed in many forms.  I am concerned about the current health of the local church in America, concerned about its flexibility and its capacity to change.  So on this basis, I am going to present over my next several entries several elements of “future church” form as I see them currently developing.

next entry– values of the emerging generation and healthy churches

Check out the new needs assessment process for new churches http://www.compassionbydesign.org/church-planting.html