Why Not Start a Church?

I gave a talk yesterday on why we should start more churches (based off Ed Stetzer's Planting Missional Churches). Included in my talk were reasons we DON'T start new churches. I'm posting my notes below.

After seeing what the Bible says about church planting, you might be thinking “Man, why doesn’t everybody church plant! This is clearly what God wanted!” Here’s a couple reasons why new churches aren’t started.

1. Because people don't realize that new churches are statistically most effective in evangelism.

• Bruce McNichol did some research on the age of a church and their effectiveness in evangelism and found the following...
• Churches under 3 years of age win an average of 10 people to Christ per year for every hundred church members.
• Churches 3-15 years of age win an average of 5 people per year for every hundred church members.
• Churches over 15 years of age win an average of 3 people per year for every hundred church members.

2. Because people don't realize there is room for more new churches in their area.

• It may actually be harder for a seminarian to start a church for the following reason: A seminarian often has accumulated so much debt they can’t take the low salary that often comes with just starting out in a church plant. And I’m not even saying they wouldn’t be willing to take the low salary - a lot of times they simply can’t (because they need enough to support their families and pay down their student loans).
• A friend of mine just graduated from seminary out in Springfield MO and he’s not even sure he can afford to go into ministry. He’s considered working a secular job just to pay down his debt. Most churches don’t pay extra for education. They pay for experience and for skills that allow you to be efficient and effective at your work. Therefore, it’s not only the church planter who starts off with a low salary.
• Some denominational leaders or church leaders often consider pastoral candidates without seminary training to be ineligible or unprepared to plant new churches. This bias limits your options, increases your costs, and certainly isn’t in line with Scripture (i.e. Jesus didn’t overlook Peter just because he didn’t have seminary training - and Peter started a church that began with 3,000 and then continued to grow from there). This professional-church syndrome hurts church planting.

3. Because some are afraid to trust ordinary people to lead a church plant.

• Ed Stetzer, in his book Planting Missional Churches, refers to “Professional-Church Syndrome.” This refers to the notion that all churches must have seminary-trained pastors to be legitimate. However, while education is important, years of academic training are not necessary to start a church.
• It may actually be harder for a seminarian to start a church for the following reason: A seminarian often has accumulated so much debt they can’t take the low salary that often comes with just starting out in a church plant. And I’m not even saying they wouldn’t be willing to take the low salary - a lot of times they simply can’t (because they need enough to support their families and pay down their student loans).
• A friend of mine just graduated from seminary out in Springfield MO and he’s not even sure he can afford to go into ministry. He’s considered working a secular job just to pay down his debt. Most churches don’t pay extra for education. They pay for experience and for skills that allow you to be efficient and effective at your work. Therefore, it’s not only the church planter who starts off with a low salary.
• Some denominational leaders or church leaders often consider pastoral candidates without seminary training to be ineligible or unprepared to plant new churches. This bias limits your options, increases your costs, and certainly isn’t in line with Scripture (i.e. Jesus didn’t overlook Peter just because he didn’t have seminary training - and Peter started a church that began with 3,000 and then continued to grow from there). This professional-church syndrome hurts church planting.

4. Some people think it's better to invest in dying churches versus investing in starting new ones.

• Because it’s easier to give birth than to raise the dead!
• Some authorities argue that changing a rigid, tradition-bound congregation is almost impossible.
• In the same way that sometimes it’s more cost-effective to purchase a new vehicle, rather than pouring more and more money into an old one to keep it running like new - it’s sometimes more cost-effective to start a new church rather than pouring more and more time and money into trying to fix an old one.
• Fact: Church revitalization does not happen much. It does happen sometimes, but not much.
• Recent studies show that nine of ten people who are told by doctors to “change or die” cannot do so. In other words, they are told to stop smoking, lose weight, or quit drinking in order to survive, and nine of ten die rather than change. Churches are similar; they often choose their traditions over their future. But some can and do change.
• I personally believe we need both revitalization of dying churches and the start of healthy brand new churches, while giving a larger percentage of money and attention to the latter (to church planting).

5. Because some people are still living under the delusion that America is still a Christian nation.

• While North American Christians have access to abundant resources of information (i.e. Larry Burkett for financial information, James Dobson for advice on raising children, Third Day for Christian music, Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins for Christian fiction), the unchurched people in North America remain generally untouched by this evangelical subculture and live in darkness because we aren’t drawing them in with a culturally relevant gospel witness.
• Unchurched North Americans no longer have a biblical worldview or understanding. Their religious ideas tend to be distorted reflections of biblical truth. In other words, secular people may be familiar with certain religious terminology or ideas, but their familiarity is often a distortion of its original meaning.
• According to George G. Hunter, one of the country’s foremost experts on evangelism and church growth...
• The U.S. is the largest mission field in the Western hemisphere.
• The U.S. is the fifth largest mission field on earth.

Why Start a New Church?

Yesterday I gave a talk on reasons to start a church. I thought I'd post my notes here. This is roughly based off a section in Ed Stetzer's Planting Missional Churches.

1. John 20:21, Jesus explained, As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”

• Jesus said “As the Father has sent me...” How did the Father send Jesus? He sent Jesus “to seek and save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). And we are sent in the same manner as Jesus - to seek and save the lost. We are to pick up Jesus’ earthly work and continue doing it.
• This sending statement doesn’t apply just to the disciples. If we consider the Bible a living document with relevance to God’s people through the ages - Jesus’ words apply to both those who originally heard them and to us!
• God sent Jesus to start a church! Matthew 16:18, “Now I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it.”
• We should start new churches because Jesus is sending us as the Father sent Him. And Jesus was sent to start a church.

2. Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

• In this passage Jesus gave the task of world evangelization to his disciples - both then and now. That is, we are to take the gospel to every nation - what missiologists now call every people group and population segment.
• You see - the Great Commission IS church planting! The Great Commission instructs us to 1) make disciples, 2) baptize those disciples, and 3) teach those disciples. All three of these things are tasks and functions of the church. Do you get what I’m saying. The Great Commission IS church planting! Disciples are made in the church, people are baptized in the church, people are taught the Word of God in the church. The Great Commission IS church planting.

Here’s an interesting thought...

• The best indication of what Jesus meant when he gave the Great Commission can be found in how the first hearers responded. Let that sink it. The best indication of what Jesus meant when he gave the Great Commission can be found in how the first hearers responded.
• The apostles heard the Great Commission and as they had opportunity on the Day of Pentecost, the preached the gospel and formed a church with the converts - all 3,000 of them!
• The new converts started house church after house church to do their part in fulfilling the Great commission...In Acts 5:28 the high priest said to the apostles “Didn’t we tell you never again to teach in Jesus’ name? Instead, you have filled all Jerusalem with your teaching about him...” Christianity spread through church planting. Remember Saul (before he became Paul)? What did he do? He went from place to place trying to put Christians in prison. Wait. Why did he have to travel? Because the church spread out through church planting.
• The persecuted church left Jerusalem and began doing the same thing they were doing back in Jerusalem - they started churches! In Acts 8 I think God allowed the persecution that broke out against the church because he knew that his Great Commission would be fulfilled through it. Look what happened! Acts 8:1 says that because of the persecution all the believers (by this time there were 5,000 men not including the women and children - Acts 4:4) left Jerusalem except for the apostles. And what did they do as they spread out over the regions of Judea and Samaria? Acts 8:4 says that the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went. We know that Philip started a church in Samaria and others did the same in the regions they settled into.
• The apostle Paul, once converted, dedicated his life to fulfilling the Great Commission. And what did that look like for him? He went around starting churches. They are the same churches we read about now in the book of Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, etc.
• Again - how do we know that the Great Commission is a call to church planting? Because the best indication of what Jesus meant when he gave the Great Commission can be found in how the first hearers responded. And the apostles, the new converts of the early church, the persecuted church in Jerusalem and the apostle Paul ALL responded to the Great Commission by going out and starting churches!

3. Luke 24:47, Jesus told his disciples to preach "repentance and forgiveness of sins...to all nations."

• This is great church planting advice. This is how you start a church. You go among the lost, you reach out with love to the lost and you preach repentance and forgiveness of sins. This is the biblical model.
• When Peter finished preaching on the Day of Pentecost Acts 2:37-38 records that Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” ³⁸ Peter replied, “Each of you must repent...for the forgiveness of your sins.
• Jesus knew that as we reached out to “all nations” we’d have to use different methods to reach different people. That is - every church will look a little different because different methods are required to reach different people groups (i.e. you wouldn’t use the same methods in a retirement community that you might use with twenty somethings). But he wanted us to remember that even though we’d be using different methods to reach different people, the message must always be the same (i.e. There is peace with God through Jesus Christ - turn away from your sins and turn toward God and receive forgiveness of sins).

4. Acts 1:8, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

• Why start new churches? Because Jesus intended from the beginning that his message spread out.
• This final sending statement of Jesus provides the geography of church planting. We are to start in one place, and then expand out. This is impossible to do without the start of new churches. People will only drive so far to come to your church. At some point you need to start a new church so that people can become active members of your congregation. The statistics show that people who live a certain number of minutes and miles from your church are less likely to serve at and invite their friends to your church.
• Today we could think of Jerusalem as our community, Judea as our state, Samaria as our continent, and the utter most parts of the earth as other continents that are not our own. However you slice it and dice it, the church is to continue to expand. This is done through church planting.
• Interesting side note: Many churches take the gospel to the ends of the earth through their mission work, while forgetting about Judea (their state) and Samaria (their continent). That is, they are all for helping God’s Word spread abroad, but do very little to help it spread at home.

Why Good Enough is Good Enough

Here's a great article by Rick Warren that I had to pass along.

A survey done last year, with the United States already deep into the current recession, showed that churches and nonprofits were increasingly turning to volunteers to help them do more for less. According to J. David Schmidt & Associates, 1 in 5 churches and nonprofits had increased their volunteer use to offset the economic downturn.

Unfortunately, many churches have set the bar so high striving for ministry excellence that they can’t find volunteers to step up. Some churches have fostered this myth by making “excellence” an idol, which makes people of average talent hesitant to get involved. Many Christians never serve because they fear they aren’t good enough to do so. They believe the lie that serving God is only for superstars.

You may have heard it said, “If it can’t be done with excellence, don’t do it.” Well, Jesus never said that! The truth is, almost everything we do is done poorly when we first start doing it—that’s how we learn.

In fact, the Bible says, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done” (Ecclesiastes 11:4 NLT). That perfectly describes many churches today.

Yet, our growth at Saddleback has happened because we hold to the “good enough” principle,” which allows far more people to get involved. We simplify everything and accept less than perfect performance in order to mobilize more people. It doesn’t have to be perfect for God to use and bless it.Some churches hold up such a standard of excellence that they basically say to volunteers, “If you’re not a professional, you don’t need to apply, because we only want the very best.” That creates a congregation of passive spectators.

At Saddleback we would rather involve thousands of regular folks in ministry than have a perfect church run by a few elites. We’d like to be a model for other churches, so we aim for average people doing average activities in order to get extraordinary results. That’s how the typical McDonalds succeeds while being staffed by high school students. The system works; it doesn’t require unusual talent.

In fact the good-enough principle was the concept behind our P.E.A.C.E. Plan, too: “Ordinary people doing what Jesus did, wherever they are.” If we’re going to defeat the giants of spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, extreme poverty, pandemic disease, and rampant illiteracy, it won’t happen by just mobilizing the superstars and experts in those fields. There’s just not enough. We’ve got to mobilize everyone.

That’s why good enough beats ministry excellence – hands down!

"We simplify everything and accept less than perfect performance in order to mobilize more people. It doesn't have to be perfect for God to use and bless it. " ~Rick Warren

Growth Groups and Spiritual Growth

I've been pondering the question: Do growth groups truly result in spiritual growth? After giving it some thought, here's my test that will help me (and you) answer the question.

If you hadn't joined a growth group would you have done the following on your own over the past 10-12 weeks?

1. Met together with 10-15 other people once a week to discuss Biblical concepts and pray? Yes or no?

2. Worked through a biblically based cirriculum (i.e. book or DVD)? Yes or no?

3. Got together with 10-15 other people and reached out to the community showing God's love in a practical way through a servant evangelism project? Yes or no?

4. Served at church for setup & teardown once a month? Yes or no?

5. Learned the needs of 10-15 other people in the church and faithfully prayed for them throughout the week? Yes or no?

6. Met together with 10-15 other people from church and had a party? Yes or no?

7. Met someone new from church? Yes or no?

If you answered "no" to ANY of those questions, then you grew spiritually as a result of being a part of a growth group.

1. Proverbs 27:17 says, As iron sharpens iron so one person sharpens another. When we rub shoulders with other believers we are spiritually "sharpened".

2. Psalm 119:109 says, How can a young person keep his way pure? By living according to God's Word. When we study the Bible (and biblical principles) it helps us stay pure.

3. John 1:1 says, The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. That is to say - Jesus left heaven and came to us. He reached out to us with his love. When you reach out in love to others with a servant evangelism project you are following in the footsteps of Jesus.

4. Mark 10:45 says, Jesus came to serve, not to be served. When we volunteer for setup and teardown we are following in the footsteps of Jesus.

5. First Thessalonians 5:17 says, Pray continually. When we meet with our groups and take up the prayer requests - we all have something to pray about!

6. Acts 2:42 teaches that the 1st century church (the first church ever) devoted themselves to four things: 1) the apostles teaching (the Scriptures), 2) fellowship, 3) the breaking of bread (sharing communion meals with one another) and 4) prayer. When we have a party together at the end of each semester we are fulfilling the biblical purpose of "fellowship".

7. Galatians 6:10 refers to the church as a family. Can you imagine having a brother or sister in your biological family and not introducing yourself and learning their name? It's just as crazy in the body of Christ to not be continually meeting your new brothers and sisters in the Lord!

We set up growth groups at New Day to help you fulfill the teachings of Scripture. And when you do that you GROW SPIRITUALLY!

So now let me pose the question I was asking myself TO YOU. Do growth groups help people grow spiritually? Leave a comment and let me know what you think.