Don’t go around church planters
This has happened to me before when I hung around with church planters. It was a couple of years ago at the Exponential Conference (it is coming up and you do want to be there and attend a unique pre-conference session). I started listening to Alan Hirsch in a leadership meeting and hanging around with church planting commandos for the first time in a few years (they are thousands of young, focused, kingdom minded Christian leaders on a mission to change cities with relevant churches), and my life came into new perspective. Even though I planted two churches with my family, being with these folks at the conference messed me up. And I am pretty sure that it was Jesus getting my attention and reshaping my priorities. Lots of what happened there stuck with me.
And here I was again, hanging around with church planting commandos, this time in Las Vegas. You would have thought I had learned the risks of being in this dangerous territory. I hadn’t even prepared myself and just thought it would be training as usual. I was taking these planters through the Compassion by Design coaching intensive, a time when we think through how to grow intentionally misssional new churches. Its the start of a 12 month process of coaching and small group fellowship that supports planters who want to grow a missional new church starting with a community needs assessment. For some of them it is like backing your volkswagon up to a fire hose, rolling down the window and turning the water on–lots of information and out of the box thinking about what is important in a new church that is serious about growing something that reaches people who weren’t looking for church. Lots of intense discussions and reality checks happen during these meetings and its always a two-way street–church planters are not shrinking violets and don’t hesititate to challenge and question both process and approach.
I made the critical mistake of listening to them and hearing their stories. And one story in particular caught me by surprise. I spend a lot of time writing and talking with others about what it means to be missional–what it means to join the mission of God on the planet. All of my work in the needs assessment materials is geared to make this practical and to set the DNA of the new or existing church with a missional focus. And until this meeting, I thought I understood what this really meant in some depth. Think again, and leave it to Jesus to be the final teacher about what is missional. Of course He is the real source of what this concept “missional” is about, to be sent into the skin of others and to join them so they can see and hear and smell God. ouch.
you met Jesus in Los Vegas, eh? Tried to make a comment there, but it was a page - not a post :-0
Anywayz, I am reading Frank Viola’s revised book, ‘From Eternity to Here’ and it reminded me that the Ecclesia is not the brick and mortar, but the body. I have always known this but it resonates more passionately within me now more than ever. Of course you met Jesus in Las Vegas with other believers because that is where he is. In bodies of believers.
And of course we go expecting to meet Jesus on Sunday mornings “at church” - but its funny how we cannot go somewhere that we are.
I loved the truly “bottom line.” You leg us hanging though referencing “one story in particular” and then not sharing it! I felt cheated. (LOL)
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