Video Transcript: You and Your Community Match

You're at the point in this church planting class now where the rubber will meet  the road, where you're putting it all together, where you're thinking about  launching, or you're thinking about taking that next step, or you're actually  seriously, looking at church planting, and your role. When you get to this point,  you ask yourself, do I match with the type of church I'm planting? Do you and  your community match. And we're going to talk about this today in the next  couple of sessions, on how to really launch now with some nuts and bolts issues that will help you launch your new church, a common cause of church planting  failure. And I like what James Griffith, William Easum talks about in the most  common mistakes made by church starts in any way. He says, in reality, Sam  did not have a mission or vision statement, he had a fantasy statement in his  love affair with his vision binded him to the realities blinded him to the realities  on the mission field, the difference between a fantasy and a vision is a fantasy  never gets translated past the sheet of paper. What I've seen in church planting  over the years in church planters, is they think they have a vision statement, but  it's really a fantasy statement. It's not dealing with the realities of who they are  and the community that they're reaching. And even their plan is not realistic for  the gifts for their community. So today, we're gonna really get into that  alignment. Now, when you plant a church, and you think about yourself and your community, your calling and reaching. You need to think like missionaries in this  sense. You see, successful planters think like missionaries, they know that  they're going into occupied territory to reach unreached people, a job for which  they need to learn the language, technology, culture of the new area for the  mission field dictates the tactics, not the fantasy statement. In other words, okay, so if you're in America, and a large number of people are in Facebook, as you  look to your community, get on Facebook. Now some people go like, I don't do  Facebook, well think like a missionary, you want to speak the language of an  area. There may be many, many other ways you're going to think about this,  who you are connected to the community that you're involved with. So if there's  an area that that is very rural, think like a missionary, how would I reach people  in a rural area? If I'm in an urban area in the city? How would I reach people?  How can I be that urbanite? You in Your Community? A match. Church planting  is about going out and getting more and more people. And after that, it's about  gathering people in gradually forming them into a redemptive community. So it's  about people, people, people, people. And one thing I've learned as a church  planter, is that a sustainable relationships are matching relationships. I will tell  you right now that you know there's different subgroups in every society, maybe  we should call them co groups. And you're not going to reach someone that  you're not somehow there's a misalignment there. Now, I know that you can  maybe if there's enough money, and so forth, you can do that a while. But there  has to be that alignment. The planter in the mission field must connect. planting  a church is a process of experimentation, innovation, replication, but always 

within the reality of the mission field, and how it's responding. The planter has to be constantly adapting and modifying the vision to the mission field. You know, I  think about my various church plantings of my first church plant, I was just out of seminary, I was young. Back in the 1980s. I myself was a pretty suburban kind  

of person. So in the suburbs of Chicago, we planted a church in a lot of ways. I  understood the people that were coming in, I was more into business. In my  high school era. I even took lots of business classes. So I was interested in that  business community and I can understand them the and we were in an area  where these new businesses were all coming out and starting out and it was a  fun place to be with my gifts and who I am as a person kind of entrepreneurial.  So I was part of starting the business chapter of the Chamber of Commerce in  my area. Now that's who I was. And I was connecting to people leading people  to Christ. I understood that community, and I connected as a church planter to  that community. And each of you sort of look at who you are where God has  placed you. Later on another church planted, I planted, my wife and I were  homeschooling. So we were sort of connecting to that crowd, so to speak, and  we understood their struggles. Now, does that means that others are not  welcome? No, everyone's welcome. But in a lot of ways, you have to think of  who are you? Who are you called to reach and who understands you. So I  understand the business community, I understand a homeschooling community,  other church plants, I was in Eugene, Oregon. And since I have advanced  education, and we were in a college town, you know, I could also connect to that crowd, and lead many people to Lord. So as you are thinking to planting  churches about planting churches, who are you? Now, here's a case study that  James and William bring up. It's the Country Music church. And they change  changes only to decline and face a wall. So here's the story. There's this country music church in Texas, they tell the story about and they have country music, it's there's a twang and everything they're doing, and they're reaching people. And  then, so all of a sudden, there was a decline, they face a wall. So he, James,  and William come in, and one of them come in, this is their story I came in and I  observed that the mission field was right for a method that resembled what they  started out with, as a church plant originally. And that they should revisit the kind of music that won over so many country, you'd think I'd denied the existence of  God, the virgin birth, and the resurrection all in one sitting. After a spirited  discussion, they acknowledged, feeling insecure about their style of worship,  because it was so rare. And everyone else was doing such a cutting edge  ministry, I pointed out to them, that fruit is the only way to measure cutting edge.  They had overlooked the small detail that their style of music had led their  church to be the third largest church in the area in just five years, okay. Now,  you may say style and music could make that big of a difference. This church  would would, which started as a country, sort of flair, that was the pastor and so  forth. What they did is they wanted to be more cutting edge like some of the 

urban areas and do some of the cutting edge music. So he left that country  route, and their church hit a wall and started to decline. Now, what does that  say? What that says is they, with their leaders grasped that they themselves  were country. And they felt like, you know, we should change to be more cutting  edge. But as these church consultants and new church planting experts come in there and talk and says, No, what is cutting edge? It's been effective. And how  are you effective is when you speak to the message that is understood by US  leaders and understood by the community that you reach? You know, here's  another thing, I think that was very important. Over the years I've been on, Bill,  or William, learn to ask a question of church planters who are failing? How many hours a week do you spend in your office? If I get a response more than one  hour a day? I know, the problem is, they're spending valuable time tinkering with technology or perfecting their fantasy, instead of spending it out with the people.  It's rare for a conversion to take place in the office of a new church plant. Now,  here's another issue on church planting, when you think about engaging with  your community. Are you actually out there? So the first part of this presentation  is are you a match with who you're reaching? The next part is, are you actually  out there reaching them? I remember many times as a church planter. I was in  my office, and I'm doing something and then I think to myself, you know, I really  gotta go out and meet people. And there's, there's some, like an internal I don't  want to do this. Meeting people. And when I sort of had that attitude, especially  as a church planter, it was fascinating how then people in my Leadership Corps, they didn't want to meet people either to help me meet people. And I realized  that I had to put that discipline of meeting people in my life. And it wasn't just,  oh, he's got a personality and meet people. No, it was the actual habit, the  discipline. So what I did is I started putting, like, I'm going to be at this place out  in the community, this time, I would say to my wife, hey, let me go shopping, you know, you're busy. So I would do much of the grocery shopping, in order to meet people. I joined organized, joined organizations to meet people, you know, when I joined the Chamber of Commerce, it forced me to meet people to get out there. There's all sorts of avenues to do this. There are Toastmasters clubs, all sorts of  civic organizations you can be part of, you can volunteer at various places. Now, here's something just a little important thing a lot of times, we feel like an  urgency for those who have great needs. And it's an important urgency. So we'll  volunteer our meeting people at let's say, a love incorporated or a place like that. No, that's very important. But those are, in some ways, easy places for us to  distract ourselves from our vision of building the church, and basically caring for  people with great needs. Now, that's very important. And in don't misinterpret  me, I'm not, you know, dis, or discounting that, I think it's very, very important.  But in planting a church, in a lot of ways, as a church planter, your goal is to  raise up leaders who are going to volunteer at like the love Incorporated, or the  United Way's so you have a special calling, and task and passion to meet 

leaders that will help you multiply and build your church. So that means some of  the networking that you're going to do in the meeting of people is going to be like in areas that maybe are a little bit counter intuitive. You're going to be in places  where you're seeking to lead people in the Lord or lead them to help you plan to  church and reach other people. A lot of times, church planters will network with  people that might be easy to get to a program, but not the leaders that are going to really make a difference to plant a church in the area. Now, some of you might say, Well, Jesus spent his time with the poor. And I'm saying yes, we do. But  notice, Jesus spent his time looking for leaders, the disciples, and they don't.  And when I say this, I'm not saying that they have to be the rich of the area. I'm  talking about networking with people who are called to help you build a church.  That's getting it out of the fantasy stage and into the nuts and bolts being with  people phase, you and your people group match, because they fail to execute  the surrounding area in your networking, conceptualize their approach, decide  on whom to reach first, and I was talking about reaching leaders, and choose a  methodology that reach the targeted people and targeted people just means  people you know, that connect with you, the leaders, in order to actually launch  this church, church planters often make the mistake of winding up with his  church designed for everyone. The net effect of this approach is 30 or 40 people forever. Now, some people look at this and go, that can't be this church is for  everyone. It is welcoming everyone. But what you're doing is you're developing  a team, you're networking for a team, now you're leading people to Christ along  the way, but you're being very intentional, that who you are. Who are you called  to be? How are you called to reach people? What Who are you called to reach?  They call this a homogeneous unit principle that is basically under a lot of  debate today in various church circles, because it kind of sound sort of, like  exclusiveistic, like, what there's this group, but I'm not reaching that group. The  reality is you are reaching everyone, but you're reaching people that have that  sizzle. You understand how they think, you know, my wife, and daughters have  poodles. And you know, I have a poodle too, since I'm in the family, right? But  there's something about poodles that my wife understands how a poodle thinks.  Once Once upon a time, we had another dog that got into the family. And my  wife would always say, I don't know how Benji thinks. I don't know how he  thinks. But I know how Buster thinks or Riley or Flynn. I know how that those  dogs thinks because there are poodles. And I think there is a little bit of a  metaphor here, but it speaks a lot about church planting. If we don't know how  each other think, especially in the beginning phase, when we're laying the  foundation. It creates a lot of dissonance. And as what James and William says,  you know, we end up having In the net effect of 30, or 40 people forever. Well,  this does bring up then people group problems and I sort of introduce that here.  Most mission fields have three to five very different people groups within them.  Because the planter hasn't exegeted the area and determined beforehand, 

which one of these groups to reach first, he or she winds up with a few from  each group, which is seldom good because each group requires and wants  something different, how a poodle thinks, how a different groups think. And you  really want to say, You know what, let's start with this group, you know, larger  churches, they get very big, they have a leadership structure that eventually  they can reach different people groups really clearly. And then they can be  unified around a central approach. But when you're starting a church, you're  looking for many, many groups, many leaders within a people group. We often  hear planters say we're a multicultural church, even though they have a handful  of people. Sometimes they think they're effective, because they have  representatives from each mission field coming to their church. But that's a  mistake. They now have a church for everyone, which means a church with very few distinctives. When you plant a church, you're looking for that flavor in the  cooking, that sauce that sizzle. And when you have a lot of people from different  people groups, they're what often happens, you're trying to meet the basic  needs of each people group. And you're never really soaring in any creates  many times a lot of conflict. I know of a lot of churches that have gone through  different people groups, in their effort to be multicultural. And then there's is a  road of much conflict in that much conflict is really different distinctives fighting  themselves out. People grew up in music styles. When you plant a church, your  music is one of the key ways your worship style is one of the key issues that  relate to the people that you're reaching, and in the decisions made in music  style, go a long way. And this is what James and William talk about. The  problem is they don't have any focus. Therefore they don't have a consistent  strategy, the strategy changes with whomever walks through the door, all of a  sudden, a bunch of traditionalists come to the church and start squawking about not liking the style of music. What do they do? Well, they change the style to  accommodate a few new people. Now you have people who basically are more  contemporary in their style, they're now traditional, and essentially, the group is  really not a blended, co-people group. Now there actually is the co-people group blended. And if you had the vision, that's what you're gonna do, you're gonna  start off, there's a large number there like that. You do the hymns young, and  well, you do the contemporary songs, understandable to that group, that's a  group. But if you're starting out more contemporary, and then a few people come that are traditional, and then you change it to a blend, what happens is this  group now becomes sort of unhappy, the traditionalist group is never really  happy. And so what happens is those people leave and then possibly, if it's very  effective, maybe a new people group shows up, but notice the disruption to that  new church plant, if there's all these changes. If you're a trained planter, you  know, the mission field will always determine the type of music. But if you don't  have an intentional mission field, you have no intentional strategy, therefore, no  intentional focus. And so listen to their complaints. You listen to their complaints,

you do the unthinkable, change the style of music, and as these people say, and you're dead, in other words, it creates a lot of problems. So trying to put a music  or trying to put together a church that reaches everyone means your strategy is  constantly changing, and there's no predictability. We all know that. Any effective 

church has a predictable liturgy, whether it's prescribed or not, it's there. And in  that liturgy, the most important factor seems to be a certain sense of  predictability when it comes to the style of music. So the style of music being  somewhat predictable is very important. And you make those decisions based  upon the people group God is calling you to reach. So really look at who you are as a church planter. The key when you're launching is to analyze the mission  field, decide what group of people we should reach out first. Usually the first  group of people are those people most like you Focus on them first, and then  the next group in the area. Why make it even harder than it is, I mean, church  planting is hard, then be very focused and very intentional. Let's look at, let's  look, let's at least leverage the people, we might have a shot at reaching, then  after you reach them, leverage your resources to figure out a strategy to reach  the second group in your geographical mission field. Now, I mentioned before, is there some objection, this is in a lot of ways called the homogeneous unit  principle, and there is some objection to it. Some people have a problem with  the homogeneous principle. And these authors and myself personally, I don't  either we don't, because it's not a matter of singling out one group and ignoring  the other, the issue is more of an affinity rather than discrimination. Affinity is a  two way street, about 70 to 80% of the people who attend a church are in a fairly tight socio economic pattern. They choose to be at that particular church  because they want to identify with the majority of people already present. But for some reason, the homogeneous unit principle has been reduced to in many  circles, we're only going to let people in who are like us. But that's not what  we're saying. We're merely referring to the leverage trying to reach out people  who are the easiest to reach, and then branching out from there. If you look at  most of nonhomogeneous churches in the United States, you will find that the  area around them is also very diverse. So decide on who you're going to focus  your attention on and develop a strategy and your liturgy around them. You  know, the homogeneous unit principle is not something that you are to be  scared of, or run away from, because essentially, what you're trying to do is  you're trying to form community, and forming community is difficult in itself. But  when you're planting a church, you're looking at those things that are already  existing in, you're honoring what God has done in a community to create  opportunities for you. You need to make sure that you are compelled by a  burden for people and have affinity with them compatible with the area into  which he or she is going that you're going. And you thoroughly understand the  area in which the church is being planted. When you're getting ready to launch.  These are very important things in some ways. We talked somewhat about this 

early on in the church planting class in a lot of ways. I'm coming back to review  this again, this is that important. You know, I have been with a lot of church  planters who don't understand this. And it I love the fantasy visions that they  have. We're going to be a church for everybody. This is going to be the church  where everyone is welcome. But after two, three years, I see after 35 years of  watching this, the same thing happens. They close down, they're frustrated, and  they get cynical about planting churches again. And when they heard first,  suddenly something about Hey, who are you reach people? Like you, your  family? They would like say no, we're to reach all nations. And I agree we are to  reach all nations. But where do you start? You start in your own life, your own  families, your own friends, you start with people that you understand even  Jesus. If you look at the homogeneous unit principle applied to Jesus and the  disciples, what do you see? Jesus did not go reach a Roman, and then he went  down to Phoenicia and reach somebody from the coast. And then he got on his  leadership team, somebody from Antioch no, he is he was in his area. He lived  where he lived, he reached people in these leaders became the foundation by  which more were reached. And then when they reached Paul, Paul was much  more Roman, you know, the Damascus Road experience. And what did God  do? God had Paul start reaching the Gentiles. He understood the way the  Gentiles, the poodles sort of speak, think in there, he was going to Greek town,  one after another, and many of the disciples stayed with reaching some more of  the Jews in an area. Then Peter had a vision that hey, he's going to going to  expand beyond that people group. Notice he's already strongly in one people  group, and now he's moving to another people group, but he is not known for  being the herald to the Gentiles. He is known for opening the door that there are more people groups that need to be reached for Christ. So as you're now getting ready to launch just do a reality check back to your vision back to your  community and say who am I and who am I called to reach