Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. -[2 Corinthians 4:1-6, ESV]

Every year I read about half a dozen megachurches offering expensive Apple products or even cars as incentive for showing up or bringing people to church. I’ve been told that people will accept an invitation to church on Easter 85% more often than other Sundays. Easter and Christmas- people show up if you ask them. Good. Great! Ask people to your heart’s content.

But what exactly are we giving away? How you get people to show up is how you’ll keep them around. If you give them an iPad this year, you better offer something bigger next time, and the next time, and the next time. If you’re resorting to cheap gimmicks to get them to show up, they’ll probably keep coming for the handouts, regardless of the message. Their incentive to show up isn’t to worship God or learn more about Jesus; you’re all but paying them to show up, raffling off prizes in hope they’ll get a little Jesus in the bag with that sweet iPad 2. Moreover, the underlying thought is that maybe if they win that iPad, maybe they’ll feel obligated to keep coming. Even put a little money in the bucket.

And if you only d it once or twice a year- does that make any difference? Are these people sticking?  If the surpassing grace that comes through Jesus’ blood isn’t enough, then what is? Do you really think the chance to win a car somehow makes a person more attuned to the Gospel?

What are you giving away? The Gospel you preach produces the churches you get. You can promote a false gospel through gimmickry; sucking people in by promising material things as if that’s what Jesus did… as if the Gospel of Jesus himself isn’t enough…

For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. … For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. -[2 Corinthians 5:14-15, 21, ESV]

If that isn’t enough… if the life, death, and resurrection of  Jesus isn’t enough…

then nothing ever will be.

*The following article is reproduced in its entirety with permission.

God is changing the Church, and that, in turn, will change the world. Millions of Christians around the world are aware of an imminent reformation of global proportions. They say, in effect: “Church as we know it is preventing Church as God wants it.” A growing number of them are surprisingly hearing God say the very same things. There is a collective new awareness of age-old revelations, a corporate spiritual echo. In the following “15 Theses” I will summarize a part of this, and I am convinced that it reflects a part of what the Spirit of God is saying to the Church today. For some, it might be the proverbial fist-sized cloud on Elijah’s sky. Others already feel the pouring rain.

Before they where called Christians, followers of Christ have been called “The Way”. One of the reasons was, that they have literally found “the way to live.” The nature of Church is not reflected in a constant series of religious meetings lead by professional clergy in holy rooms specially reserved to experience Jesus, but in the prophetic way followers of Christ live their everyday life in spiritually extended families as a vivid answer to the questions society faces, at the place where it counts most: in their homes.

In aligning itself to the religious patterns of the day, the historic Orthodox Church after Constantine in the 4th century AD adopted a religious system which was in essence Old Testament, complete with priests, altar, a Christian temple (cathedral), frankincense and a Jewish, synagogue-style worship pattern. The Roman Catholic Church went on to canonize the system. Luther did reform the content of the gospel, but left the outer forms of “church” remarkably untouched; the Free-Churches freed the system from the State, the Baptists then baptized it, the Quakers dry-cleaned it, the Salvation Army put it into a uniform, the Pentecostals anointed it and the Charismatics renewed it, but until today nobody has really changed the superstructure. It is about time to do just that.

In rediscovering the gospel of salvation by faith and grace alone, Luther started to reform the Church through a reformation of theology. In the 18th century through movements like the Moravians there was a recovery of a new intimacy with God, which led to a reformation of spirituality, the Second Reformation. Now God is touching the wineskins themselves, initiating a Third Reformation, a reformation of structure.

Since New Testament times, there is no such thing as “a house of God”. At the cost of his life, Stephen reminded unequivocally: God does not live in temples made by human hands. The Church is the people of God. The Church, therefore, was and is at home where people are at home: in ordinary houses. There, the people of God: -Share their lives in the power of the Holy Spirit, -Have “meatings,” that is, they eat when they meet, -They often do not even hesitate to sell private property and share material and spiritual blessings, -Teach each other in real-life situations how to obey God’s word, dialogue – and not professor-style, -Pray and prophesy with each other, baptize, `lose their face’ and their ego by confessing their sins, -Regaining a new corporate identity by experiencing love, acceptance and forgiveness.

Most churches of today are simply too big to provide real fellowship. They have too often become “fellowships without fellowship.” The New Testament Church was a mass of small groups, typically between 10 and 15 people. It grew not upward into big congregations between 20 and 300 people filling a cathedral and making real, mutual communication improbable. Instead, it multiplied “sidewards”, like organic cells, once these groups reached around 15-20 people. Then, if possible, it drew all the Christians together into citywide celebrations, as with Solomon’s Temple court in Jerusalem. The traditional congregational church as we know it is, statistically speaking, neither big nor beautiful, but rather a sad compromise, an overgrown house-church and an under-grown celebration, often missing the dynamics of both.

The local church is not led by a Pastor, but fathered by an Elder, a local person of wisdom and reality. The local house-churches are then networked into a movement by the combination of elders and members of the so-called five-fold ministries (Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Evangelists and Teachers) circulating “from house to house,” whereby there is a special foundational role to play for the apostolic and prophetic ministries (Eph. 2:20, and 4:11.12). A Pastor (shepherd) is a very necessary part of the whole team, but he cannot fulfill more than a part of the whole task of “equipping the saints for the ministry,” and has to be complemented synergistically by the other four ministries in order to function properly.

In doing a puzzle, we need to have the right original for the pieces, otherwise the final product, the whole picture, turns out wrong, and the individual pieces do not make much sense. This has happened to large parts of the Christian world: we have all the right pieces, but have fitted them together wrong, because of fear, tradition, religious jealousy and a power-and-control mentality. As water is found in three forms, ice, water and steam, the five ministries mentioned in Eph. 4:11-12, the Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Teachers and Evangelists are also found today, but not always in the right forms and in the right places: they are often frozen to ice in the rigid system of institutionalized Christianity; they sometimes exist as clear water; or they have vanished like steam into the thin air of free-flying ministries and “independent” churches, accountable to no-one. As it is best to water flowers with the fluid version of water, these five equipping ministries will have to be transformed back into new, and at the same time age-old, forms, so that the whole spiritual organism can flourish and the individual “ministers” can find their proper role and place in the whole. That is one more reason why we need to return back to the Maker’s original and blueprint for the Church.

No expression of a New Testament church is ever led by just one professional “holy man” doing the business of communicating with God and then feeding some relatively passive religious consumers Moses-style. Christianity has adopted this method from pagan religions, or at best from the Old Testament. The heavy professionalisation of the church since Constantine has now been a pervasive influence long enough, dividing the people of God artificially into laity and clergy. According to the New Testament (1 Tim. 2:5), “there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” God simply does not bless religious professionals to force themselves in-between people and God forever. The veil is torn, and God is allowing people to access Himself directly through Jesus Christ, the only Way. To enable the priesthood of all believers, the present system will have to change completely. Bureaucracy is the most dubious of all administrative systems, because it basically asks only two questions: yes or no. There is no room for spontaneity and humanity, no room for real life. This may be OK for politics and companies, but not the Church. God seems to be in the business of delivering His Church from a Babylonian captivity of religious bureaucrats and controlling spirits into the public domain, the hands of ordinary people made extraordinary by God, who, like in the old days, may still smell of fish, perfume and revolution.

The “Body of Christ” is a vivid description of an organic, not an organized, being. Church consists on its local level of a multitude of spiritual families, which are organically related to each other as a network, where the way the pieces are functioning together is an integral part of the message of the whole. What has become a maximum of organization with a minimum of organism, has to be changed into a minimum of organization to allow a maximum of organism. Too much organization has, like a straightjacket, often choked the organism for fear that something might go wrong. Fear is the opposite of faith, and not exactly a Christian virtue. Fear wants to control, faith can trust. Control, therefore, may be good, but trust is better. The Body of Christ is entrusted by God into the hands of steward-minded people with a supernatural charismatic gift to believe God that He is still in control, even if they are not. A development of trust-related regional and national networks, not a new arrangement of political ecumenism is necessary for organic forms of Christianity to reemerge.

The image of much of contemporary Christianity can be summarized, a bit euphemistically, as holy people coming regularly to a holy place at a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual lead by a holy man dressed in holy clothes against a holy fee. Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called “worship service” requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy to keep going, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions. Statistically, a traditional 1-2 hour “worship service” is very resource-hungry but actually produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, that is, in changed lives. Economically speaking, it might be a “high input and low output” structure. Traditionally, the desire to “worship in the right way” has led to much denominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism. This not only ignores that Christians are called to “worship in truth and in spirit,” not in cathedrals holding songbooks, but also ignores that most of life is informal, and so is Christianity as “the Way of Life.” Do we need to change from being powerful actors to start “acting powerfully?”

The church is changing back from being a Come-structure to being again a Go-structure. As one result, the Church needs to stop trying to bring people “into the church,” and start bringing the Church to the people. The mission of the Church will never be accomplished just by adding to the existing structure; it will take nothing less than a mushrooming of the church through spontaneous multiplication of itself into areas of the population of the world, where Christ is not yet known.

Church tradition has managed to “celebrate the Lord’s Supper” in a homeopathic and deeply religious form, characteristically with a few drops of wine, a tasteless cookie and a sad face. However, the “Lord’s Supper” was actually more a substantial supper with a symbolic meaning, than a symbolic supper with a substantial meaning. God is restoring eating back into our meeting.

Jesus called a universal movement, and what came was a series of religious companies with global chains marketing their special brands of Christianity and competing with each other. Through this branding of Christianity most of Protestantism has, therefore, become politically insignificant and often more concerned with traditional specialties and religious infighting than with developing a collective testimony before the world. Jesus simply never asked people to organize themselves into denominations. In the early days of the Church, Christians had a dual identity: they were truly His church and vertically converted to God, and then organized themselves according to geography, that is, converting also horizontally to each other on earth. This means not only Christian neighbors organizing themselves into neighborhood- or house-churches, where they share their lives locally, but Christians coming together as a collective identity as much as they can for citywide or regional celebrations expressing the corporateness of the Church of the city or region. Authenticity in the neighborhoods connected with a regional or citywide corporate identity will make the Church not only politically significant and spiritually convincing, but will allow a return to the biblical model of the City-Church.

They crucified Jesus, the Boss of all the Christians. Today, his followers are often more into titles, medals and social respectability, or, worst of all, they remain silent and are not worth being noticed at all. “Blessed are you when you are persecuted”, says Jesus. Biblical Christianity is a healthy threat to pagan godlessness and sinfulness, a world overcome by greed, materialism, jealousy and any amount of demonic standards of ethics, sex, money and power. Contemporary Christianity in many countries is simply too harmless and polite to be worth persecuting. But as Christians again live out New Testament standards of life and, for example, call sin as sin, conversion or persecution has been, is and will be the natural reaction of the world. Instead of nesting comfortably in temporary zones of religious liberty, Christians will have to prepare to be again discovered as the main culprits against global humanism, the modern slavery of having to have fun and the outright worship of Self, the wrong centre of the universe. That is why Christians will and must feel the “repressive tolerance” of a world which has lost any absolutes and therefore refuses to recognize and obey its creator God with his absolute standards. Coupled with the growing ideologisation, privatization and spiritualisation of politics and economics, Christians will, sooner than most think, have their chance to stand happily accused in the company of Jesus. They need to prepare now for the future by developing a persecution-proof spirit and an even more persecution-proof structure.

Where is the easiest place, say, for a man to be spiritual? Maybe again, is it hiding behind a big pulpit, dressed up in holy robes, preaching holy words to a faceless crowd and then disappearing into an office? And what is the most difficult, and therefore most meaningful, place for a man to be spiritual? At home, in the presence of his wife and children, where everything he does and says is automatically put through a spiritual litmus test against reality, where hypocrisy can be effectively weeded out and authenticity can grow. Much of Christianity has fled the family, often as a place of its own spiritual defeat, and then has organized artificial performances in sacred buildings far from the atmosphere of real life. As God is in the business of recapturing the homes, the church turns back to its roots, back to where it came from. It literally comes home, completing the circle of Church history at the end of world history.

As Christians of all walks of life, from all denominations and backgrounds, feel a clear echo in their spirit to what God’s Spirit is saying to the Church, and start to hear globally in order to act locally, they begin to function again as one body. They organize themselves into neighborhood house-churches and meet in regional or city-celebrations. You are invited to become part of this movement and make your own contribution. Maybe your home, too, will become a house that changes the world.

She’s written several books, but the one highlighted in the news was her latest release, Will Jesus Buy Me a Double-Wide?: (‘Cause I Need More Room for My Plasma TV). It’s all about people- some people who sniffed money and got addicted and some people who realized that loving others was more important than stuff. Karen’s got two things going for her (actually, she’s got more than two, but these are pretty important).

First, she’s a superstar storyteller. Every chapter in Double-Wide kept my attention, but her description of the jubilee in Mobile Bay is the best I’ve ever read. The book is worth a buy simply for that one little old chapter. Dead serious.

Second, she doesn’t hold back when she sees something wrong. She’s got bite, and in her latest book Karen eviscerates the prosperity gospel and boldly rebukes those who proclaim it in the name of wealth. For real, folks. She did it with humor that good old Southern charm, but there was no mistake in the end. There’s no place in God’s Kingdom for those health, wealth, and prosperity guys. It’s just not what Jesus was about.

So that brings us to this week. You might have read about “Bishop” Eddie Long in the news. Some guys claimed Long sexually assaulted them. Long denies it. It turns out “The Bishop” is one of those prosperity gospel preacher-types, complete with the custom suit, bling on his fingers and around his neck, and those expensive cars. Karen wrote a blog post about it:

Whatever the courts decide about the sex abuse charges, Long has a troubling history of abusing his position to coerce people into serving him. In a flagrant abuse of scriptures, Long has preached a false gospel – the Prosperity Gospel. Tragically, it’s one that Americans have been groomed for since Oral Roberts arrived in shining white polyester promising that God loves Capitalists best.

It’s a message that allows pastors like Long to exact obscene amounts of monies from the manipulated masses in the name of the bloodied Christ.

Long’s abuses have been well-documented. According to an investigation conducted by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, between 1997 and 2000, Long received at least $3.07 million in salary, benefits and the use of property from the nonprofit tax-exempt, now defunct, Bishop Eddie Long Ministries, one of 20 charities Long established to reportedly help the needy.

Apparently that referred to Mr. Long.

Tax records revealed that the $3.07 million channeled to Long was as much as the charity gave to all other recipients during the same time period. Long’s compensation included a $1.4. million six-bedroom, nine-bath home on 20 acres in Lithonia, Georgia, use of a $350,000 Bentley and more than a million in salary. …

“I’m not going to apologize for anything,” Long told an Atlanta-Journal reporter. “We are not just a church, we’re an international corporation. We’re not just a bumbling bunch of preachers who can’t talk and all we’re doing is baptizing babies. I deal with the White House. I deal with Tony Blair. I deal with presidents around this world. I pastor a multi-million dollar congregation.”

You’d think that a pastor of a multi-million dollar congregation would have better things to do, but he doesn’t. That post got Karen in an awful lot of trouble with The Bishop, because he banned his church from reading Double-Wide this week. No kidding. Is this a big deal? Probably not. I sincerely doubt many of those 25,000 church members were ever going to pick up Karen’s book.

But you know what? You should pick it up. You should go to your bookstore of choice and grab a copy. Download it on your Kindle, or Nook, or whatever e-reader you use. Buy one for your friends. You could even mail a copy to The Bishop (c/o Bishop Eddie Long, 6400 Woodrow Road, Lithonia, GA 30038). God knows they might get a kick out of it (and if they don’t, I know of a pastor down in Florida who seems to get a kick out of burning books).

I don’t get a kickback from any of this. Karen’s local, so maybe we’ll bump into each other sometime when she’s not touring the country selling books. But that’s about it. I’m a fan, and I believe in her message. I think you should, too.

If there is one essential to Christianity, it is that at its core we have the Gospel- literally, the Good News. The Gospel we preach produces the churches we get. Over the last ten years I’ve spent a lot of time on determining what the Gospel is. What comprises the Gospel? What makes it good news? Why is it good news? In all my theological education, I don’t remember ever having one class session where we sat down and attempted to answer that question, and it’s disappointing.

Nearly four years ago I asked my readers “What is the Gospel?” and responses varied. One friend cut and pasted the entire book of Romans into my comments. While it demonstrated my point, it wasn’t particularly constructive to the discussion. If you asked fifty people, you’d probably get forty different answers. “What is the Gospel?” is a loaded question. It has a lot of answers. One might say, “good news.” Another might proclaim it’s the books of “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.” Others delineate between different gospels, referring to the gospels of prosperity and salvation or the social gospel. What I want to know is simply, what is the Gospel of the Bible? What is the good news, and why is it good news?

But first, a couple ground rules:
1. Try to keep your comments as clear and concise as possible (don’t post an entire book of the Bible).
2. Remember that other people are watching (Hi Mom!). I shouldn’t have to say this for a post about the Gospel, but play nice.

Okay. Your turn.

In contrast, it is our responsibility as Christ-followers to be positive change agents- bent solely on the fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer to the Father: “YOUR KINGDOM COME, YOUR WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.” We cannot do this alone, thus our desperate need for Christian community and cooperation. Thus, the Church.

Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. [2 Corinthians 4:1-6, ESV]

May I wake up tomorrow with the desire and ability to be a good servant of Jesus Christ to the world. To you.

A note from Joe: BA Stewart is a friend of mine from seminary in New Orleans. He’s one of the most intelligent and thoughtful guys I’ve ever known, and I’m grateful for our many conversations that elevated my knowledge and comprehension of philosophy (and photography). Please enjoy his guest post.

C.S. Lewis’ book, Mere Christianity is among one of his more popular non-fiction works. Lewis’ objective in his book is to discover what it means to be merely Christian–that is a Christian without the perceived trappings of Christianity. He does so by starting with general revelation and concluding Jesus through a series of arguments from emotion and joy and avoiding Christian jargon and divisive theological issues so that the reader is not distracted by such things. Lewis has found many friends among Christians who share his sentiment that Christianity in and of itself is a beautiful, but is often tarnished, duly or unduly, by the perception that Christians are divided, bigoted, old fashion, hypocritical, or one of a million other indictments that keep people away from the faith. Interestingly enough, even some of these attempts to recover the basic teachings of Christianity are now used to as fodder against Christians. Take for instance Christian fundamentalism. This movement was bread out of a series of pamphlets released at the turn of 20th century entitled, “The Fundamentals”, which attempted recapture the basic doctrines of Christianity. This among other movements to one degree or another have all in one shape form or fashion attempted to discover mere Christianity.

Reclaiming the essential doctrines of Christianity is a tough gambit, as inevitably one will include a doctrine that some consider extraneous, or one will exclude a doctrine another considers essential. I have my theological convictions of which I will not relinquish, but there are other doctrines I hold more loosely. To me, however, the more important question to Christianity is, what does it mean to be merely Christian, practically speaking? I ask this not to diminish doctrine. I personally believe that doctrine is more important that praxis because theology undergirds praxis–without the doctrine the praxis  is meaningless. I ask this because as Christians, we have a theological conviction that we have a highly doctrinal message that the world needs to hear and believe. Interestingly, Jesus cared a lot about praxis too. The bulk of his teachings are practical theology as opposed to philosophical theology. But with this said, Jesus did not give a huge list of do’s and don’ts or a how-to guide for delivering the message. Rather, he summarized his commands into two commands and spoke largely in the form akin to wisdom literature. Paul was not a whole lot more specific. We do get somewhat synoptic view of his ministry in Acts and autobiographical glimpses in his letters, but this raises the question, are such things prescriptive or descriptive? At the end of the day, I am not sure, but taking in to account the message of  Romans, perhaps the most systematic theological work in the Bible spends 12 chapters talking about one particular doctrine, (namely the gospel) and reduces the implications of the gospel to a matter of conscience in Chapter 14, so if I was to err, I would err on the descriptive side. But nevertheless I do understand that everything they did was for the purpose of spreading the the gospel.

As a person interested in such things, I have run the gauntlet about how I’ve approached praxis. I was raised in a rather fundamental environment. While I don’t think that there is anything inherently evil about my upbringing much of what I was told as to what Christians do as a child was a product not so much of biblical teachings but of rather traditional forms of Christian behaviors. I however did not become a Christian until I was 18. After becoming a Christian, I rather embraced the more fundamentalist precepts I already knew because to me, such things were what Christians did. But then I changed. I went a trip to another land and came back and did a pendulum swing the other way. I became highly critical of Christian practices in America and rejected many of them on my own accord. It took some time to center myself again, although Joe probably still thinks I’m a fundamentalist .  While I probably over-reacted to my experience, I think lesson burned in my brain is one of self-evaluation. I constantly ask myself a personalized form of the one I asked earlier: are the actions that I perform merely Christian? Relating back to my experience, I was amazed when I stepped off the plane in another land how the in-house “wars” American Christians fight diminished. These Christians weren’t debating young earth creationism against old earth creation against theistic evolution against intelligent design. There weren’t  arguments over traditional and contemporary forms of music. There weren’t “emergents” critiquing the “seeker sensitive”/relevance movement critiquing church growth movement critiquing whatever came before that. There weren’t debates over which translation was the best and which ones were from the devil — in fact, most were happy to have a translation, period. There wasn’t much discussion at all, really, other than discussion over what the Bible say, talks about whom they shared with this week, who they would share with next week, prayer, and where they would meet next week as to not draw too much attention to themselves.  In personal reflection when I ask myself the aforementioned question, I am amazed how much of my quote “Christian” practices melt away. This is not an indictment of American Christianity, but a self-evaluation, and one that I think needs to be asked. This helps me stay focused on the task that God commissioned his disciples to do.

*Disclaimer* – These are my brief thoughts. These are not intended to be the “final word” but rather the “beginning of a conversation”

Church Planting is highly romanticized and is the “sexy” thing to do within the sub-culture of the American pastor. If you are truly revolutionary, edgy, a rebel, then you, my friend, need to plant a church… or at least that’s what we’re told.

But there are not only one, but multiple elephants in the room. Everyone is thinking it, discussing it at their local trendy coffee shop (or, as in the case of the newest “cool place” to hang – Panera Bread) and talking about it on Twitter. And, yet, nothing is changing. The peer pressure is just too great for most.

Church Planting is a heavy endeavor not for the faint-hearted. It truly is a difficult task that needs to be for the truly called (which, sadly, knocks about 1/2 of you reading this out). I don’t know what the current statistics on the survivability rate for church plants is, but a few years ago it was 20%. That means that 80% of church plants failed. That means that either A) God didn’t know what he was doing or, B) 80% of those who planted weren’t really called.

So what is the future of church planting? What needs to change within the church planting circles in order that we may see a new breed of planter emerge? I hope this begins the discussion on the right path.

Church Planting and the Status Quo

What Joe didn’t know when he asked me to do this was that I have been working on this for quite some time. This is just a brief outline of my total thoughts on the subject. I hope that this brief synopsis begins a discussion about some serious elephants in the room.

Most planters would be violently opposed to me saying this seeing as how many are disgruntled people who want to simply “buck the system” and start something “fresh.” But “fresh” is not what most planters end up with. Many end up just Febreezing the old fabrics of the organized institution and making it smell better, for a time, and organizing other disgruntled people. Let’s face the facts, most new traditional church plants (by “traditional” I mean the, “If you build it, they will come” mentality) just initially attract people who have left the church because they “weren’t being fed” (an infant mentality) or they like the “edgy new church in town” (a carnal response). Now, don’t get me wrong, reaching those people are just as important than reaching those who have never stepped foot inside a church before. But as I mentioned above, most new churches are just a perfume-covered version of the old institution.

Everyone Has to Pay the Bills

I once read Andrew Jones as saying that seminaries are partially responsible for the consumer mindset of the western church. Follow me on this – most seminaries (at least the ones I am most familiar with) do not have student loans available. Most do not have an abundant source of scholarships and grants. This makes students rely on credit cards and personal loans with high interest rates to complete their education. In turn, when they graduate, they are so deep in personal debt that they can’t plant a church because the thought of the possibility of no stable income is more than their families can bear. So, they seek out an already existing church with a promise of a stable income in hopes that “someday” they may be able to chase this vision of starting a new church. Sadly, someday almost never arrives. I call it new church abortion.

But that is just one aspect of paying the bills that affects church planting. Another aspect is the fact that most church planters spend an enormous amount of time raising money for this new work – and rightly so – only to jump into bed (apologies for the euphemism) with anyone and any organization willing to give a few bucks. We have seen it over and over again where a planter raises funds only to have to pay back upwards of 25% of their tithes and offerings back to 10 to 15 different organizations. If this doesn’t kill the forward momentum of the church, it severely hinders it. It’s this mindset that we have to be big quick along with the fact you have to pay the piper that drives this model.

Everyone Is the Next Big Thing

There are several terms in the church world that get on my last nerve. Mostly because those saying these terms are either A) copying what someone else said at a conference (we’ll discuss this matter in a moment), or B) they don’t truly understand what they are saying. Here are just a few examples of terms that drive me crazy: “Authentic” – As in, “I just want to be authentic.” or “We strive to be authentic in our worship.” As if every other church in the world is trying to be un-authentic. Really?

Another term is “community.” I know. I know. Community is desperately needed and is the fundamental building block of new churches (only if it is built with true disciples and not merely consumer minded “lay-persons”). Why this term community invokes a knee-jerk, baby-throw-up-in-the-back-of-the-throat reaction from me is because, like authentic it communicates that every other church is not about community. Even in the most traditional and dead or dying churches, I have found some form of community.

Both of these terms convey an anti-kingdom mindset. NorthWood has taught me a lot, but hands down, the largest lesson learned is the idea of the kingdom. I hear many preach, teach and talk about the kingdom but very few live a kingdom context.

Living a kingdom context means it’s not merely about you, your church, your people. It’s about all believers all around the world being the body of Christ… with HIM as the head, not the preacher. I completely believe in Hebrews 13.7 “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” The role of the pastor as a leader to be followed, respected, and imitated is key. But when that role goes to their heads, it’s a death knell for kingdom expansion. Too many want to be “THE guy.” The guy who everyone in the city calls pastor (but rarely do they want to actually pastor a city). They want to be the guy who is called to speak at all the cool conferences, the guy who writes all the cool books, the guy who has the coolest and most downloaded podcast… the list goes on and on. In short, they want to be the next big thing and they see church planting as their means of getting that prestige.

But to live in a kingdom context means that you are willing to share the limelight – even give it up – so that Jesus gets the glory. It means that you are willing to admit that there are other churches in your city who have strengths. It means you are willing to admit you have weaknesses. It means that your people have the freedom to create new ministry opportunities in their neighborhoods and workplaces… and invite others to join them! Living in a kingdom context is the most free way to live, but it costs more than most are willing to pay. Remember, to GOD be the glory and the great things HE has done.

Trapped In the Copy Room

For a while, I was seeing too many people come across my attention that had a recycled version of someone else’s vision. I would usually see that phenomenon sometime within a few months of a large conference somewhere. Guys would come in with a well polished prospectus and convinced that I had never seen or heard of anything like it (c’mon, I was at the same conference for cryin’ out loud!).

I am seeing, though, more and more people coming to me who have truly spent time with God getting a fresh vision and a true passion for their city. It’s been a breath of fresh air for sure! But I still see people trying to use someone else’s values and vision as their own. Very seldom does that work… ok, I’m being generous here… it NEVER works! They may draw a big crowd, but are they producing true disciples? Here’s the other thing about this, when I ask them what a disciple of “X” church looks like, I rarely get an answer of any kind. More often than not, I get the deer-in-the-headlight look.

So, with all that being said, what kind of planter will it take to see a real Jesus movement happen in the U.S.? Here’s my answer: It doesn’t take a “planter”… it takes a true disciple who makes disciples. I would love to hear your answers for this!

In the end, many Haitians will profess Christ and turn to him. However, in this repentance, there is a turning to Christ in the sense of “adding on to the deities who can be called upon for favors and blessings” rather than “turning away from evil and false past beliefs and practices.” If there is to be spiritual maturity, if there is to be a movement to entrust spiritual formation to indigenous pastors, then there must be increased awareness of sin and the personal responsibility each person has for their sin as Scripture reflects. Missionaries who are concerned with the qualitative value of their evangelistic work as much as the quantitative value will do well to bear these issues in mind.

First, it is imperative each individual begins to see him/herself as culpable of sin. The Apostle Paul indicates in Galatians 3, as well as the rest of Pauline literature, that individuals are responsible for the choices they make. Prior to conversion, rural Haitians engaged themselves in sinful idolatry, removing God from the center of their thoughts and replacing him with selfish desires to manipulate lwa (supernatural spirits). The Haitian’s thinking needs modification in understanding him/herself as responsible for reprehensible or sinful behavior and not the lwa. The Christian Haitian experiences regeneration and indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Spirit enables the new convert to choose to act in obedience to God. Although they view the lwa as the guilty party, it is commonplace to understand one is able to “sin” against another individual or the community. The biblical account of sin incorporates this dynamic into its description of sin, but ultimately all sin is seen as offending God. If Haitians are to come to a biblical view of sin, they must realize they not only are they responsible for their actions, but they are also responsible for their attitudes, thoughts, and unbelief as well.

Secondly, this new insight into personal responsibility will lead to an evolved idea of confession and forgiveness of sins. The view of confession and forgiveness of sin as some type of ritual leading to accessing the power of Christ does not evidence a proper understanding of repentance. Genuine confession and repentance results in the forgiveness of sins and demonstrates an understanding of personal blameworthiness on the part of the repentant sinner. In addition to teaching biblical principles regarding sin, confession and forgiveness, missionaries would also strengthen the Haitian Christian’s understanding of sin if the missionary would be vulnerable enough to discuss battles with sin in their personal lives. Too often missionary workers are unwilling to confess their sins and shortcomings for fear the indigenous people will lose confidence in them and reject the Gospel. Instead, missionaries try to maintain the status of a type of “saint” in the eyes of the Haitians rather than a “saved sinner.” This mentality exacerbates problems of failing to be accountable for one’s sins. While there are certain limitations, missionaries would serve their populations well to model confession and forgiveness of sin to the believers in Haiti.