It was not a famous or important town in Jesus' day. In fact, it was a tiny hovel two miles from Jerusalem. Unlike Jerusalem it was a town that welcomed Jesus. Unlike Galilee it was a place that believed in Jesus. In this town, Jesus found welcome and needed rest. In this town, He was worshipped as the One who was worth a whole years wages of pure nard from India broken and poured over His head by a woman who was shunned by the rest of society.
It was in this town that a resurrection took place - before the resurrection in Christ himself - the friend of Jesus, Lazarus. In this town he invited Mary to sit at His feet where only men were supposed to be. In this town, Jesus dined at the home of Simon the Leper, something others would never have done. And while born in Nazareth and crucified in Jerusalem, it was in this town that Jesus ascended up into heaven after his resurrection.
A tiny, insignificant town. It was poor, it housed those who lived from paycheck to paycheck and more than a few disreputable types. But it had one thing that has preserved its name for all eternity - it was a town that welcomed Jesus. There were homes where He could come and spend the night and where he felt at home. There were homes where friends ministered to Him rather than He ministering to them. Here he was loved, here he could rest, here he could be ministered to, here he could be away from the crowds who only wanted something from Him. Here people like Mary just wanted to be with Him in His presence.
In Ascending from this town He paid it a great honor. He came to a family who loved him. He ascended from a town that loved Him.
Bethany: a place where Jesus was always welcome and at home. I want my home to be like the home of Mary and Martha. And I want my town to be a place where He is welcome because He has many friends in the neighborhood: who love Him, want to be with Him and honor Him with all that they are and have.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Calebs and Joshuas: The Key to Healthy Ministries
Our world is filled with naysayers: those who have little vision, small faith, high fear and frankly don't believe that God is capable of doing great things. This is true in the church, in missions, and any number of Christian organizations. The book written years ago "Your God is Too Small" applies today.
Small vision, little faith, and high fear factors to try something significant for God are responsible for much of the lack of fruit in many ministries. Board members who say "we've never done that before," pastors who are comfortable with the status quo, missionaries who don't really believe that God can break in and do something because of the "hard soil" all contribute to ministry initiatives that lack vision and faith or entrepreneurial spirit. It is life in the comfort zone of diminished and empty faith rather than life lived on faith that God can do what we cannot do!
The difference between those of small faith and those of big faith is this. The first group defines faith as that which we can accomplish by ourselves. The second group defines faith as that which only God can accomplish. The first is all about human effort and the second is all about divine power.
This was the divide between those who were sent by Moses into Canaan to explore it on behalf of the Israelites (Numbers 13-15). Ten of those who reported back reported what were probably true facts as they had seen them. Their conclusion was that the Israelites would never be successful in taking the land. They saw through human eyes and from that standpoint were probably quite accurate.
Caleb and Joshua, however, saw through divine eyes and they simply said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it" (Numbers 13:30).
Their confidence was in the power of God rather than the strength of their army. "The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them" (Numbers 14:7-9).
The negative ten focused on fear and human efforts. Caleb and Joshua focused on faith and God's provision. And it made all the difference in their perspective.
The church in the affluent west often bases their faith on what they can accomplish (or not) with their gifts, resources and plans. The missing factor is faith in Christ's ability and power to do far more than we could ever humanly do. After all, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not (and cannot see)" Hebrews 12:1. If our plans and strategies and expectations of fruit only goes to what we ourselves can do we have shortchanged ourselves and underestimated God. God is not interested in what we can do by ourselves. He wants us to reach for things that only He can make possible so that He is the One who gets the glory - not us.
The church today is full of people like the ten who said, we cannot take the land. The church desperately needs the two - Caleb and Joshua who declare that we can - but only because it is God who goes before us. The mission world has many like the ten who really don't believe that God will actually break through in amazing ways. It too needs Calebs and Joshuas who live in the realm of deep abiding faith in the power and purpose of God to do far beyond what we could ask or imagine - in his strength, not ours.
Are you a Caleb or Joshua or more like the other ten? God calls us to "abundant and copious fruit (John 15) for the Kingdom based on his presence and power and Kingdom authority (Matthew 28:18-20). That takes vision, faith, belief and reliance on a power far greater than our own. Small faith leads to wandering in the wilderness like the Israelites. Courageous faith leads to the taking of the land. Which world do you live in today?
Small vision, little faith, and high fear factors to try something significant for God are responsible for much of the lack of fruit in many ministries. Board members who say "we've never done that before," pastors who are comfortable with the status quo, missionaries who don't really believe that God can break in and do something because of the "hard soil" all contribute to ministry initiatives that lack vision and faith or entrepreneurial spirit. It is life in the comfort zone of diminished and empty faith rather than life lived on faith that God can do what we cannot do!
The difference between those of small faith and those of big faith is this. The first group defines faith as that which we can accomplish by ourselves. The second group defines faith as that which only God can accomplish. The first is all about human effort and the second is all about divine power.
This was the divide between those who were sent by Moses into Canaan to explore it on behalf of the Israelites (Numbers 13-15). Ten of those who reported back reported what were probably true facts as they had seen them. Their conclusion was that the Israelites would never be successful in taking the land. They saw through human eyes and from that standpoint were probably quite accurate.
Caleb and Joshua, however, saw through divine eyes and they simply said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it" (Numbers 13:30).
Their confidence was in the power of God rather than the strength of their army. "The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will swallow them up. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them" (Numbers 14:7-9).
The negative ten focused on fear and human efforts. Caleb and Joshua focused on faith and God's provision. And it made all the difference in their perspective.
The church in the affluent west often bases their faith on what they can accomplish (or not) with their gifts, resources and plans. The missing factor is faith in Christ's ability and power to do far more than we could ever humanly do. After all, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not (and cannot see)" Hebrews 12:1. If our plans and strategies and expectations of fruit only goes to what we ourselves can do we have shortchanged ourselves and underestimated God. God is not interested in what we can do by ourselves. He wants us to reach for things that only He can make possible so that He is the One who gets the glory - not us.
The church today is full of people like the ten who said, we cannot take the land. The church desperately needs the two - Caleb and Joshua who declare that we can - but only because it is God who goes before us. The mission world has many like the ten who really don't believe that God will actually break through in amazing ways. It too needs Calebs and Joshuas who live in the realm of deep abiding faith in the power and purpose of God to do far beyond what we could ask or imagine - in his strength, not ours.
Are you a Caleb or Joshua or more like the other ten? God calls us to "abundant and copious fruit (John 15) for the Kingdom based on his presence and power and Kingdom authority (Matthew 28:18-20). That takes vision, faith, belief and reliance on a power far greater than our own. Small faith leads to wandering in the wilderness like the Israelites. Courageous faith leads to the taking of the land. Which world do you live in today?
Friday, December 3, 2010
Three Kinds of Work for Leaders
Because leaders are by nature "busy" and always have a boatload of things that need to get done it is easy to fall into the trap of activity that does not actually drive the ministry or team forward. One of the ways to avoid this common tendency is to think of leadership work in three categories - and to pay attention to how much time we spend in each of these categories.
The first and easiest category is "routine work." Routine work includes those things that we pay attention to all the time. The hundred plus emails I receive every day requires my attention - it is routine. This applies to many of the meetings we have, reports we may fill out, and those activities that are a part of one's normal work.
The second and more challenging category is "management work." This is the work required to manage staff and processes including check in meetings, walking around and actually seeing what is happening, paying attention to metrics and finances. It is work that keeps current people and processes moving in the right direction.
The third and most difficult work leaders do is "directional work." It is the thinking, brain storming and evaluation of where we are and where we ought to be going as well as developing ideas as to how to get there. Directional work is actually the most important work a leader does although all three categories of work are necessary.
Here is the challenge for every leader. It is very easy to default toward routine work because it is ever present, blinks at us on our screen in the form of email and is natural for us to do. We all tend to default toward the easy and the immediate. While more challenging, management is a given for us and requires our attention. Management ensures that the status quo is healthy. What often gets lost, however, because our schedules are full with the routine and management is charting a course for the future which requires uninterrupted time, thinking, study, evaluation and prayer. We know it is important but the immediate often takes us from thinking about the future.
An helpful exercise is to color code one's calendar for a month or two according to the kind of work each obligation represents - routine, management and directional. Often one finds that the routine and day to day management leaves little time for the directional. Yet it is the directional that helps the organization move forward. While the routine, management and directional are all important, what is most important is not to neglect any of the three and not to default toward the easy (routine) at the expense of the hard (directional). Ask yourself on a monthly basis whether these three kinds of work are in balance in your schedule.
A way to prevent this from happening is to block schedule time for the directional before each month starts for thinking, planning, evaluating and praying about the future. That way the most important is not driven out by the urgent!
The first and easiest category is "routine work." Routine work includes those things that we pay attention to all the time. The hundred plus emails I receive every day requires my attention - it is routine. This applies to many of the meetings we have, reports we may fill out, and those activities that are a part of one's normal work.
The second and more challenging category is "management work." This is the work required to manage staff and processes including check in meetings, walking around and actually seeing what is happening, paying attention to metrics and finances. It is work that keeps current people and processes moving in the right direction.
The third and most difficult work leaders do is "directional work." It is the thinking, brain storming and evaluation of where we are and where we ought to be going as well as developing ideas as to how to get there. Directional work is actually the most important work a leader does although all three categories of work are necessary.
Here is the challenge for every leader. It is very easy to default toward routine work because it is ever present, blinks at us on our screen in the form of email and is natural for us to do. We all tend to default toward the easy and the immediate. While more challenging, management is a given for us and requires our attention. Management ensures that the status quo is healthy. What often gets lost, however, because our schedules are full with the routine and management is charting a course for the future which requires uninterrupted time, thinking, study, evaluation and prayer. We know it is important but the immediate often takes us from thinking about the future.
An helpful exercise is to color code one's calendar for a month or two according to the kind of work each obligation represents - routine, management and directional. Often one finds that the routine and day to day management leaves little time for the directional. Yet it is the directional that helps the organization move forward. While the routine, management and directional are all important, what is most important is not to neglect any of the three and not to default toward the easy (routine) at the expense of the hard (directional). Ask yourself on a monthly basis whether these three kinds of work are in balance in your schedule.
A way to prevent this from happening is to block schedule time for the directional before each month starts for thinking, planning, evaluating and praying about the future. That way the most important is not driven out by the urgent!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Building High Trust Organizations
The issue of trust in organizations is a complex one. It cannot be demanded but it can be cultivated. It may not be your current culture but it can become your future culture. Cultures of trust do not happen by accident: rather, they are built over time with a series of intentional practices that if lived out by the senior staff (and others who are willing) can impact the whole organization in very positive ways. Because trust is one of the key requirements for healthy interactions, collaboration and common mission, this is one aspect of culture that cannot be ignored.
One of the givens in building cultures of trust is that mistrust is often the bias that people have toward leaders. Our very political system was deliberately created to prevent leaders from having too much power with a system of checks and balances. Unless one reflects on the difference in ethics and commitments of Kingdom living (in the church) from what we experience in the world we forget that relationships that have been transformed by the Holy Spirit and which exhibit the fruit of the Spirit (however imperfectly) are fundamentally different than relationships where the Spirit is not present. We need to remind people that the qualities of love and unity are the very qualities that set us apart as God's people and that means a high regard for one another and a bias toward trust and love rather than mistrust and distrust.
When I am called into troubled churches to help them identify areas of dishealth, address them and chart a plan to move toward greater health there are often significant areas of mistrust that have their genesis in bad decisions, poor communication, fractured relationships and poor behavior. All of these will breed mistrust like a virus and must be identified, repented of, talked about, and new behaviors agreed to. This must always start with leaders owning up to ways in which they have contributed to the current mistrust, asking forgiveness where necessary and committing to new behaviors that will build trust. The rest of the congregation will rarely rise above the practices of its leaders so they set the stage for what will be.
One of the fundamental lessons I have learned over many years of leadership is that the fostering of an open, candid, atmosphere where any issue can be put on the table (as long as it is not a personal attack or with a hidden agenda) goes a long ways toward fostering trust. Mistrust grows where issues cannot be discussed because everyone knows they are off limits. On the teams I lead we have a "no elephants" policy. An elephant is something that cannot be discussed but everyone knows the issue is there. Once the issue is put on the table it is no longer an elephant, simply an issue to be negotiated through. The more elephants you have the less trust you will have. The fewer, the more trust you will have.
And that goes for me as a leader. I recently had a senior leadership meeting where some of my team felt free to criticize how I handled part of the meeting. Whether I agree with them or not is immaterial - the fact that they felt free to share their views is. I had to remind myself that I have nothing to prove and nothing to lose so as long as we can dialogue without defensiveness (on my part) we come to a better understanding. If I were to go defensive, the discussion would most likely start to shut down which would be a trust buster rather than a trust builder.
The degree that a team or group can express itself candidly (without personal attacks or hidden agendas) is a barometer of the trust level within the group. Robust discussion requires a high level of trust which is why many groups never get to that level of team. Leaders set the stage for this because directly or indirectly they either encourage and allow such robust discussion or shut it down. Thus the senior leader of an organization or team has a huge impact on the level of trust that is developed in an organization. Threatened leaders will never be able to build high trust organizations.
It is a helpful exercise for leaders and groups to discuss together what practices are trust builders and what are trust busters - agree that you will work toward eliminating trust busters and toward making trust builders a part of your organization.
For instance, trust busters include:
Trust is build one promise, one conversation, one dialogue, one relationship at a time. No matter where you are today, your church or organization can become a high trust organization with intentional attention and some changes in behavior.
One of the givens in building cultures of trust is that mistrust is often the bias that people have toward leaders. Our very political system was deliberately created to prevent leaders from having too much power with a system of checks and balances. Unless one reflects on the difference in ethics and commitments of Kingdom living (in the church) from what we experience in the world we forget that relationships that have been transformed by the Holy Spirit and which exhibit the fruit of the Spirit (however imperfectly) are fundamentally different than relationships where the Spirit is not present. We need to remind people that the qualities of love and unity are the very qualities that set us apart as God's people and that means a high regard for one another and a bias toward trust and love rather than mistrust and distrust.
When I am called into troubled churches to help them identify areas of dishealth, address them and chart a plan to move toward greater health there are often significant areas of mistrust that have their genesis in bad decisions, poor communication, fractured relationships and poor behavior. All of these will breed mistrust like a virus and must be identified, repented of, talked about, and new behaviors agreed to. This must always start with leaders owning up to ways in which they have contributed to the current mistrust, asking forgiveness where necessary and committing to new behaviors that will build trust. The rest of the congregation will rarely rise above the practices of its leaders so they set the stage for what will be.
One of the fundamental lessons I have learned over many years of leadership is that the fostering of an open, candid, atmosphere where any issue can be put on the table (as long as it is not a personal attack or with a hidden agenda) goes a long ways toward fostering trust. Mistrust grows where issues cannot be discussed because everyone knows they are off limits. On the teams I lead we have a "no elephants" policy. An elephant is something that cannot be discussed but everyone knows the issue is there. Once the issue is put on the table it is no longer an elephant, simply an issue to be negotiated through. The more elephants you have the less trust you will have. The fewer, the more trust you will have.
And that goes for me as a leader. I recently had a senior leadership meeting where some of my team felt free to criticize how I handled part of the meeting. Whether I agree with them or not is immaterial - the fact that they felt free to share their views is. I had to remind myself that I have nothing to prove and nothing to lose so as long as we can dialogue without defensiveness (on my part) we come to a better understanding. If I were to go defensive, the discussion would most likely start to shut down which would be a trust buster rather than a trust builder.
The degree that a team or group can express itself candidly (without personal attacks or hidden agendas) is a barometer of the trust level within the group. Robust discussion requires a high level of trust which is why many groups never get to that level of team. Leaders set the stage for this because directly or indirectly they either encourage and allow such robust discussion or shut it down. Thus the senior leader of an organization or team has a huge impact on the level of trust that is developed in an organization. Threatened leaders will never be able to build high trust organizations.
It is a helpful exercise for leaders and groups to discuss together what practices are trust builders and what are trust busters - agree that you will work toward eliminating trust busters and toward making trust builders a part of your organization.
For instance, trust busters include:
- Not keeping one's word
- Not being honest and open
- Refusing to admit mistakes when wrong
- Taking credit for the work of others
- Keeping our promises
- Being open, honest and candid (and diplomatic)
- Keeping short accounts in relationships
- Giving credit where credit is due
Trust is build one promise, one conversation, one dialogue, one relationship at a time. No matter where you are today, your church or organization can become a high trust organization with intentional attention and some changes in behavior.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Compliance driven organizations
One can tell much about corporate and ministry culture by simply reading their policies. Up front, I want to be clear that policies are a positive and necessary set of parameters for any healthy organization as they spell out what is acceptable or unacceptable behavior. Well written policies are boundaries that are not to be violated. Organizations without clear policies on HR, finance, relationships with vendors, conflict of interest for example, leave themselves open to behaviors and practices that can harm and bring disrepute.
Beyond the basic, clear policies, organizations either have a culture of trust or mistrust. Compliance driven organizations - those who often are mistrustful seek to write a policy for any possible infraction - or as the result of an infraction. Thus everyone gets punished for the sins of a few. Someone misuses their time card so additional layers of policy and compliance are put in place to ensure that no one does that again. The end result is often the opposite of what is desired - cynicism because everyone knows that instead of dealing with the offender, another policy has been put in place to keep everyone in place - not a place most people want to be.
Healthy organizations develop policies that specify the expected behavior of its employees, keep them to a minimum rather than trying to anticipate all possible issues, hire good people, trust them and if the boundaries are broken, deal with that individual.
The same is true in terms of church bylaws which are often written to prevent past sins (in someones mind) from occurring again. Never mind that in doing so, the congregation is communicating mistrust toward some group (by the way they hem them in) or person (senior pastors or chairperson) that hamper the organization in the present. Far better to deal with the problem person(s) than to write unnecessary boundaries into bylaws that are hard to change in the present or the future.
Writing a policy to keep behavior within bounds rather than dealing with the behavior is usually the easy way out whether expressed in personnel or bylaws. It can also be the cowards way out since it avoids dealing with the behavior of an offending individual(s) and instead tries to solve the issue through a policy - which seldom solves the underlying problem which is personal behavior.
Compliance driven organizations - who believe that there needs to be a policy or procedure for everyone and everything are operating from a culture of mistrust rather than trust, foster a legalistic rather than grace filled culture and mistakenly believe that compliance to their rigid procedures will keep them healthy. Actually, healthy people working in a culture of trust and grace will make for a healthy organization - not the other way around.
Write policies where you must. Keep them to a minimum - same with bylaws, and deal with problematic people where that is necessary. Before you write a new policy to solve a problem, ask yourself if it is necessary and how it will be perceived by those who were not a part of the problem. Compliance driven organizations may solve some perceived problems but they also can create cultures of mistrust and cynicism.
Beyond the basic, clear policies, organizations either have a culture of trust or mistrust. Compliance driven organizations - those who often are mistrustful seek to write a policy for any possible infraction - or as the result of an infraction. Thus everyone gets punished for the sins of a few. Someone misuses their time card so additional layers of policy and compliance are put in place to ensure that no one does that again. The end result is often the opposite of what is desired - cynicism because everyone knows that instead of dealing with the offender, another policy has been put in place to keep everyone in place - not a place most people want to be.
Healthy organizations develop policies that specify the expected behavior of its employees, keep them to a minimum rather than trying to anticipate all possible issues, hire good people, trust them and if the boundaries are broken, deal with that individual.
The same is true in terms of church bylaws which are often written to prevent past sins (in someones mind) from occurring again. Never mind that in doing so, the congregation is communicating mistrust toward some group (by the way they hem them in) or person (senior pastors or chairperson) that hamper the organization in the present. Far better to deal with the problem person(s) than to write unnecessary boundaries into bylaws that are hard to change in the present or the future.
Writing a policy to keep behavior within bounds rather than dealing with the behavior is usually the easy way out whether expressed in personnel or bylaws. It can also be the cowards way out since it avoids dealing with the behavior of an offending individual(s) and instead tries to solve the issue through a policy - which seldom solves the underlying problem which is personal behavior.
Compliance driven organizations - who believe that there needs to be a policy or procedure for everyone and everything are operating from a culture of mistrust rather than trust, foster a legalistic rather than grace filled culture and mistakenly believe that compliance to their rigid procedures will keep them healthy. Actually, healthy people working in a culture of trust and grace will make for a healthy organization - not the other way around.
Write policies where you must. Keep them to a minimum - same with bylaws, and deal with problematic people where that is necessary. Before you write a new policy to solve a problem, ask yourself if it is necessary and how it will be perceived by those who were not a part of the problem. Compliance driven organizations may solve some perceived problems but they also can create cultures of mistrust and cynicism.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Resolution or Revelation?
Think about the issues you face in your life that you wish were resolved. For some it is health, others, financial or family, relationships or jobs. We regularly walk through seasons where we wish for, pray for, and long for resolution of painful issues.
What we want is resolution. But what if the answer is not resolution – primarily – but revelation? In resolution the problem goes away, but in revelation we learn something about ourselves or about God that is far more important than the issue we face.
The Apostle Paul learned this: “To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassing great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:7-10).”
Think of the power of Paul’s revelation. “For my power is made perfect in weakness…for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Had he simply been given his prayer for resolution, neither he nor us would have that lesson or learned that truth.
This does not mean that we don’t pray for resolution in the middle of hard times. It does mean that we also seek to understand if and what God might want to impress on us in a revelation from him that we would only learn in and through the process of difficulty and pain. At one and the same time, we pray for resolution and pray for revelation – in the sense that God may have something far more important for us than resolution. He might have a lesson or truth about Him and our lives that we would receive no other way.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Disciplemaking or Church Planting
A close friend asked me recently whether I thought that the mandate of Christ was to “make disciples” or to plant churches. His question came out of observing the often poor efforts to plant churches around the world. This is not a new question as many ministries focus on evangelism and discipleship while others focus on church planting. For those of us involved in missions it is a fundamental and crucial question.
Jesus commanded us to make disciples – people who would wholeheartedly follow Him. This is the heart of the Great Commission. What is interesting is how the apostles took that mandate. Their response to the Great Commission was not simply to do evangelism and to disciple new believers (which they did) but it was focused on church planting as their fundamental strategy for fulfilling the Great Commission. Indeed, they came out of a Jewish background where the worship of God was never simply an individual affair but was focused around the synagogue where they gathered for worship, prayer and teaching.
In the New Testament, the church is called “bride of Christ” and Paul writes that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy and blameless (Ephesians 5:25-30). One could argue that this was simply the “church universal” but the New Testament is clear that each local church is a manifestation of the global church. Paul not only planted churches but several of his letters were addressed to individual churches (Romans, Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians Philippians, and Thessalonians).
Jesus himself addresses letters to seven individual churches in Revelation two and three. The history of Christianity is a history of church planting wherever and whenever the church has penetrated populations where the Gospel was not present. Christianity has never spread without the spread of local churches.
What is clear is that the local church is God’s chosen method to reach the world for Him. At least that was the understanding of Christ’s disciples and their response to His command to make disciples was to plant churches where believers could gather for teaching, prayer, worship and the celebration of communion – and it was this gathered body of believers that made such an impression on both Jews and Gentiles in the years following Christ’s ascension.
Studies of conversions around the world show that a large percentage (often over 50%) of those who make a profession of faith are not following Christ three years later when they are not connected to a local church. Indeed, many campus ministries in Russia have seen disappointing results because while their efforts at evangelism were fruitful, a high percentage of those who made those professions are no longer following Christ because of the lack of healthy churches around those campuses.
Indeed, it is through the church that disciples are truly made – if the church is healthy. Now to my friends point: often our conception of the church is seriously flawed. We think of church as being defined by real estate, buildings and full time staff who have degrees. In a poor world where half of its population lives on three dollars a day or less, that definition of “church” does not work.
Nor is it the story of the early church. If we define a church as a group of believers (small or large) who gather together regularly for worship, teaching and prayer and the celebration of communion under some sort of leadership we have a Biblical definition. In our organization we simply call these kingdom communities. It may be five former Muslims gathering in a home in secret, or a hundred believers worshiping under a large tree in Congo or a large congregation in the West in a fancy facility.
Often the reason for lack of success in “church planting” is that we are trying to plant a western version of a church rather than a Kingdom community of believers who gather together regularly for worship, prayer, teaching, the sacraments and to spread the gospel in their community. Multiply Kingdom communities and you multiply the church and one multiplies disciples.
Flawed as it is, Jesus chose the church as His method of reaching a lost world and each of those kingdom communities, large or small are a part of His bride that shines His light in their community. Disciple making is the job of the local church. Evangelism is the job of every believer and every local church. But everything revolves around healthy churches – kingdom communities – whether a congregation of three or a congregation of 300.
The mandate of Christ was to make disciples. The Apostles understood that the means of making disciples was to multiply local congregations where in Christian community believers grow together and together carry out the mandates of evangelism and disciple making. Those kingdom communities are His bride – for which He died and by which He intends to reach a lost world.
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