Thursday, April 06, 2006

Church Planting--the middle-class way?

Ran across this post at lunch today, from Next-Wave Church and Culture (thanks to House Church Blog for the link). There are 10, of which two jump out at me as insane and dependent on man and not God, the comments are not mine, but from the Next-Wave blogger:

3. Location, location, location

Yeah, okay. I hear you. I think our outside-the-box meeting space has done huge things for us (we meet in a pub). But...

I want to differentiate between planting a service and actually planting a community. Planting a service is easy. You just need a bunch of dough, a few people willing to work themselves to death and voila'... and yes, that's all about the location.

Planting a community, however, is a bit more ephemeral... a bit harder to quantify into easy-to-follow steps. It's a partnership between the Spirit and desperate people trying hard to listen to that Spirit. It usually results in a Sunday morning (or other time) gathering, and often people are told about it/invited to it... but that's not the heart of a true community is it?

5. It takes big money to plant a church.

Okay...

If you'll excuse my language, that's a load of shite. And a dangerous lie to tell to church planters. I wish to God (literally) that people would stop saying this. Is it easier to plant with "big money"? In some ways... And I'm really glad for churches that are able to start with a lot of support. Seriously. The fact that someone is willing to put up that kind of money on a venture that statistically has an 80% or more chance of failure is amazing in the best sense of the word. A lot of people are putting their wallets where their mouths are to plant churches.

But.

It's not necessary. You don't have to have "big money" to plant a church... In fact, you might be better off without it.

You should definitely look over the whole list, he goes on further about the money.

<idle musing>
If you decide you want to plant a church, then you will need all this. Notice the pronouns—you, you, you. If God tells you to plant a church, then He is responsible to make it work, as long as He is allowed to have control of it. Notice the pronouns this time—God, He, He (ok, God isn't a pronoun, but you get my idea). Human centered christianity is the bane of this culture, and the sooner we realize it, the better off the church will be.

In case you haven't noticed, I get steamed up about this topic. If Christianity is real, and I believe it is, then it has to be supernatural from beginning to end. I am convinced that the sooner we stop trying to do our things our way in our timing the sooner we will begin to see God doing His things in His way in His timing. The result will be genuine revival in the form of changed lives and by extension changed communities. Love is the key, not laws, and when God moves, He fills people with His love. Of course, it might not look the way we expect it and it certainly won't be controllable (praise God), but we have to be willing to let God have His way.
</idle musing>

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