broken//stained//glass

House Churches in this morning's Intelligencer

There is a short article on Renew's house churches in this morning's (Doylestown) Intelligencer.

The article gives a pretty good picture of what we're striving to do with house churches.
When the reporter and I talked, we discussed house churches, but I also mentioned that house churches are part of our "dual expression of church," mentioning that we would be holding public gatherings on Sunday mornings some time in 2009. Wish that would have made it in there as well...

But nonetheless, its a good piece.
Here's the link if you care to read about it.

Counting Attendance: A Missonal Perspective

I remember hearing author and church consultant Reggie McNeal at a one-day church leaders conference several years ago share a story about the way God counts attendance.

Reggie and his wife have three grown daughters. When the oldest one went off to college the family helped her move into her new dorm, met her roommate and got her settled in before pulling away in the family minivan. The family drove home together and sat down at the dinner table to eat dinner. Reggie was used to seeing the five chairs around the dinner table occupied, but now he looked around and someone was missing.

Only four chairs were full. He started to pray for the meal.
He opened his mouth and the words got stuck.
He just couldn't. He started to cry.
He missed his oldest daughter so much. He realized that the family was not complete without his oldest daughter being there...and it broke his heart.

For Reggie, it hit him: this is how God counts attendance. God sees who is in attendance at our churches, but he grieves over who isn't there that could and should be.
He went on to say that God is the God of the empty chair.

Reggie could have sat there and said, 'Well, look at this. Having four out of five seats full at the dinner table ain't bad. That's 80% capacity. We're doing pretty good for our little family, aren't we?" But instead, he noticed who wasn't there and he couldn't get over it.

Imagine if we counted attendance the way God counts attendance?
Imagine if we counted who wasn't at the table of the family of God but should be - the lost, the hurting, the elderly, the younger generations, those who have been cast to the fringes of society.

When we learn to count those not in attendance - and want to do something about it - we begin to have a more inclusive, more holistic kingdom mindset.

Imagine if we grieved over those who weren't at the table.

WWJB?: The more appropriate missional question

We all remember the rage of the WWJD? bracelets a few years ago.
Started with good intentions off of the terrific old, classic book by Charles Sheldon called "In His Steps" it was intended to encourage people to ask the question at all times "What Would Jesus Do?"

Unfortunately, even though Sheldon's book of over a hundred years old, about ten years go it turned into a overdone Christian marketing activity. I'm not slamming those little bracelets at all (In fact, unknowingly, I even contributed to it. In high school my friend Stephen and I used to sell them at Christian concerts even before it became the national rage). I know many people benefited from those little bracelets. But it kind of lost its meaning and significance.

Interestingly, a few years ago in an effort to push the green agenda Christian environmentalists attempted to push the WWJD? thing to a new level and announced that the acronym now stood for "What Would Jesus Drive" in an effort to have consumers purchase gas sippers rather than gas guzzlers.

But WWJD? is a hard question because it can be abstract for us as followers of Jesus in the 21st century attempting to follow a man who lived in the 1st century.
What would Jesus do at college? Well, there were no colleges in the 1st century so its hard to say. 
What would Jesus do with music? Would he have an iPod? No way of knowing because it was 20 centuries before Steve Jobs was even born...
What would Jesus drive? Probably a donkey or a small colt if he were lucky.
These questions are not impossible, but they are hard and abstract to translate over into contemporary life.

I was talking with a friend recently about this and he suggested that the better question is probably WWJD: Where Would Jesus Be? That seems to work a bit more and help our Christian imagination run into the direction of living out the ways of Jesus.

A missional approach to ministry in essence, simply states that "they don't come to us; instead, we go to them."

Where would Jesus be?
Physically, geographically, emotionally, spiritually - where would he be?
Where would he spend his time and with whom?
Well, where did he spend his time as recorded in the gospels? 
With the hurting people. Where are those who are hopeless and homeless and seemingly useless to society.
With th disgraced. Those living in poverty.
That's probably where he would be.
And as followers of Jesus that's where we should be, too.
As a follower of Jesus does that reveal where I spend my time?

We know we need to serve the poor, but do we even know one person who lives under the poverty line that we interact with on a weekly basis? Do I even have one friend who would be considered poor?

We really want to chew on these questions seriously with Renew because how we answer them will be what - and where - we're called as Jesus followers. And that will require a lot from us - a change of our schedules, priorities, budgets and relationships.

I think my friend is right: WWJB? is the better question for the missional imagination in the 21st century.
But please, don't put them on a bracelet and sell them.

Renew website

Many have asked if Renew has a website.
Yes, we will.
It's not live yet, but we're working on it.

When it is up and running it will be found at www.renewcommunity.org
(You can check it out here...I worked really hard on it. Hope you like it).

More updates in the future when we have it up and running in the near future.

Dr. Ed Stetzer - Church Planting as a Biblical Assumption

Someone sent me an article this week about church planting being a biblical assumption. It highlighted the high importance of the local church intentionally focusing on church planting.

Dr. Ed Stetzer, director of LifeWay Research and missiologist in residence, was the keynote speaker last week at the Southern Baptist Founders Conference in Owasso, Oklahoma. He stated that the overwhelming assumption of the New Testament is that local churches plant other churches. He said that pastors should avoid leading churches that are theologically sound but are inwardly focused (he used the term "cul-de-sac churches").

His challenge was to see churches connect sound theology with a mindset focused on church planting. "What was normal in the New Testament has become abnormal today, " he said. "The New Testament church was always multiplying and the church today must always be multiplying. Mission is to be wrapped together with good theology...God is a sending God."

Stetzer gave six points that reinforce the mindset of church planting as being in mission with God.

1. Prayer is essential to successful church plants. The proper place to begin a church plant is on one's knees.
2. Prayer flows into a radical reliance on God. All Christians are called to be on mission with God, bu the church has created a false three-tiered Christianity: laity, those called to full-time ministry and those called to ministry but not to missions. "We're all called. The only questions are 'where?' and 'among whom?' Church planters must not wait until circumstances such as financial resources are right, but must radically depend upon God.
3. Church planting blesses a community.
4. Build relationships and settle in. A church planter should become a part of the community which he serves and must build deep relationships, while preparing to stay for the long haul and engage the local people with the gospel.
5. Meet the needs of the people.
6. Church planters are announcing the Kingdom of God.

At Renew, we are committed to being a church planting church plant, believing that in a sense we are "born pregnant." We start with the vision that one day we will plant again so as to participate with what God is already doing.  Someone asked me if this was scary to think about. Sure it is. But it's what we believe God is up to and what is calling us to be about with Renew. 

Forwarding the gospel to new addresses

“The gospel must be preached afresh and told in new ways to each generation, since every generation has its own unique questions. The gospel must constantly be forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing his place of address.”

-Helmut Thielicke

Looking Out For New Horizons...

We seem to be living in a lot of uncertainty and risk right now. It's exciting, but it is risky.
I was encouraged by this quote by theological Hans Kung that I stumbled across recently.

“A church which pitches its tents without constantly looking out for new horizons, which does not continually strike camp, is being untrue to its calling…We must play down our longing for certainty, accept what is risky, live by improvisation and experiment.”

I hope and pray that Renew will live out this value for years to come...

Renew: Philosophy of Ministry

The ethos and DNA of Renew is going to continue to develop, especially when our Core Launch Team is developed and we begin to meet regularly.

But there are a few things that we're dreaming of that we've articulated in a philosophy of ministry. We do this in order to give people some context to the type of faith community we dream of shaping and the type of faith community we desire to shape us. Again, this isn't exhaustive or set in stone, but it simply allows us to articulate just a glimpse of the vision we have for Renew.

Download renew_philosophy_of_ministry.doc

Renew: Mission, Vision and Values

"So, what is your vision for Renew?
"What will it be about?"
"What makes it unique and distinct?"
"What do you hope to accomplish with the new church?"
"What are the core values?"

We've received a lot of these questions the past few weeks. Great questions.

I'd love to sit down and tell each one of these people who have asked these questions.
However, since I can't sit down one-on-one with everyone, at the bottom of this post I've attached a document of our Mission, Vision and Values.

While we are certain about several things with Renew, this document is a work in progress. It is not intended to be exhaustive, but simply helps us to articulate the dream we have. It's an attempt to move this exciting vision from our head and our heart onto paper.

Our core launch team - a solid group of passionate and committed people who will help to shape Renew - is currently being developed. As that team is shored up we will spend the next several months developing and cultivating the ethos of Renew as we seek out what God desires this faith community to be and to become.

Download renew_mission_vision_and_values.doc

Renew

We’ve settled on the name of the new faith community. 
Oftentimes, an organization becomes what it is called, for better or for worse. We spent a lot of time thinking and praying through the name of the new missional church, asking what name could embody what we want to become?

We’ve arrived at the name Renew.

Why we do we like it?
It's simple.
Easy to remember.
Hope-filled.
Action-oriented.
It embodies what we believe we are called to be and do.
One person commented that the name doesn't come across like we're trying to be cool. I like that.

The gospel message is about reconciliation, renewal and redemption.
Our calling as followers of Jesus is to be renewed by the love of God (2 Corinthians 5:17) and then actively join God in helping to renew the world in which we live. God's agenda for the world is renewal. And we believe that God's agenda should be our agenda.

Titus 3 talks about this renewing.
So does Romans 12:1-2. (Check out the language  of this passage in the Message - the language embodies what we want to be as a new faith community).

We’re stoked about the name and we pray that we will become the name of our faith community.