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