I’m not a fan of the growing church campus movement.  Yes, I know there is some value in these works and Deb is quick to remind me that there are indeed a lot of people getting connected to Christ through some of these campuses.  I have a great friend that works with the campus model in my area.  My brother; have mercy on his soul, attends one of these campus churches.  Yes, there are people being saved and discipled at these campus churches.  Yes, I know all the positive arguments for campuses.  But I still just don’t like the idea.  At its worst, I feel like campuses are more about Empire building than Kingdom expansion.  I sense at times that much of this simply comes down to control issues.  On my bad days I even want to liken the whole phenomena to the BORG from Star Trek.  You know; assimilation of all worlds is the plan and resistance is Futile. 

Before you get the idea that I’m just a scrooge, please know that my caution is not just emotional.  In my sober moments, I do see at least two legitimate concerns.  To begin with; is it really the best use of funds?  My wife and I were shocked a few years ago when another friend who leads a mega church told us how much money they were putting into their next campus.  After we picked our jaws up off the floor and quickly crunched the numbers we realized that we could have planted at least 10 autonomous churches for the same chunk of change in different parts of the world.  One campus church recently was on life support and many “experts” would have recommended shutting it down if it were a traditional church plant.  But the reason the main campus didn’t close up shop was because they had sunk so much money into a building purchased for the campus and they didn’t want to lose it.  I wonder if they would have had that same amount of passion in keeping the doors open if the body in question were merely a daughter church meeting in a school.

But my main concern really deals with reproduction and further expansion of the Kingdom.  It may be that campuses actually put a lid on exponential possibilities as the outreach and vision can only go as far as the control of the mother ship.  But on the other hand, in simple church planting, when a mother church recognizes the calling of leaders, trains them, empowers them, blesses them, and releases them, then there is no end to the expansion. 

So while I do see the benefit of a campus and probably just need to lighten up a bit, I’m still cautious about the whole philosophy.  It may just be a passing phase anyway.  But what about you? Have you researched this issue and come to a conclusion on the matter?

Have you seen this clip?  It was made a couple of years ago.  But I came across it again the other day while researching a church planting organization.  Though the clip is not new, I believe it’s worth checking out again.  Jeff Maguire did a fun job describing the authentic Kingdom life which he refers to as Missional living.  The point being that authentic Christ followers are all called to live out the Kingdom of God in their own daily lives.  Sharing the message and love of Christ is the call of every Christian and not merely the domain of the decorated.  Remember, the CHURCH is not a building; but the people.  So whatever your niche in the Kingdom, be sure to be “missional” about it today.  Enjoy and implement!

Help!  My wife is taking over my website and blog.  Ok, maybe not.  But she is contributing her third installment today from her resent project in Costa Rica and Honduras this past month.  In the post, Deb is actually reporting on a missionary family in Honduras that is engaging in a unique mission strategy.  The Family is actually following the lead of a great pioneer missionary from the 19^th century named William Carey.  It was the strategy of Cary to live off the land in India and work with the people.  In doing so, Cary became fluent in the native languages and thus translated the Bible in to these mother tongues.  So thanks again to everyone who prayed for Deb’s work and enjoy the report! 

I recently interviewed a missionary while traveling in Central America.  Her name is Jennifer Vesterburg and she and her husband have taken a unique approach to mission work in Honduras.  Most missionaries are Bible College graduates.  They are not.  Most missionaries plant churches.  They do not.  However, they are still preaching the Word of God and they are still making disciples.  But they are doing it in a radical new way. 

Aaron and Jennifer came to Honduras in 2003 with their four children.  They started with a missionary organization that was not a good fit.  After a year they decided that God was calling them to serve with another team.  They ended up calling Jim and Teri Riley who have served in Tegucigalpa, Honduras for almost 18 years.  The Riley’s eventually directed them to a village in the country.  Earlier they had stumbled across this village and discovered children who did not even know simple Bible stories.  Once the Vesterburgs visited the village of Las Botijas, they felt that they were exactly where God wanted them to be. Before they had gone to the village, they had done 3 years of itinerate pastor training around Tegucigalpa.  They wanted to continue this kind of work in the village.   But they discovered that the men were very basic in their knowledge and Aaron did not have the villager’s respect because they did not see him “working”.  So the Vesterburg’s made a decision to change their approach.  They decided to buy land, build a house, and farm alongside the people.  While both having farming backgrounds, this seemed a logical step to be “all things to all people”.  Along with their house, they built two dorms.  These dorms will host men who come from the surrounding villages to study the Bible.  The men will walk from 4 to 8 hours and then stay for a week learning about the Bible.  But they will also be learning about something else: farming.  All of the native pastors must be bi-vocational.   Many of them do not have an agricultural education.  So along with the Bible, these men will study crop rotation, fertilizers, pesticide prevention, and best practices to running a successful farm. 

At this time, the Vesterburgs are just in the beginning stages of their vision.  They have already completed their house, dorm, and have begun farming the land.  They have been in contact with a gentleman who has 8 men who would like to study with them.  The vision is coming to fruition.  Jennifer said that none of these steps have been easy.  But once they were committed to this new approach, God has opened doors for them.  The villager’s who did not have any respect for Aaron; now call him “Don”.  This is the highest level of respect in their culture. 

But how do you live in a village with no water or electricity?   How do you build buildings that will withstand the jungle humidity and insects?   How in the world do you run a Bible training center and educational farm in a third world country?    It starts with a lot of patience.  The Vesterburgs have now lived a year without electricity.   Jennifer is very excited about the solar panels that are coming next month.  For water, they run over 2 miles of pipe from a mountain stream.  Unfortunately their supply can be interrupted by heaving rains bringing mud and the occasional villager who just wants a drink and doesn’t put the pipe back together!  They also have a water storage cistern that sits above their home that they may use during the rainy season.  They would also like to design a whole house water filter with sand and gravel.  They built the walls of their home with Styrofoam, rebar, and cement.  Their farm consists of 38 acres.  They grow coffee and vegetables.   They would like to try wheat, but at this time they have no way of thrashing it.  They need to invent or acquire a miniature combine.  They plow with oxen.  Since much of the farming is done by hand, they have seven full-time employees who work 6 hours a day.  Jennifer cooks them a big lunch every day and Aaron leads them in devotions.  None of the men are Christians and now they are starting to ask questions about the Lord. 

Even though this new approach has been very lonely and difficult, Jennifer says they are right where God wants them.  They are making a huge impact in a village that needs Jesus, as well as a region that needs pastors and churches.  They are symbolically and literally planting seeds for the Kingdom of God.   They are doing it in a way that most traditional missionaries are not able to do.  But God is using their hearts and their gifts to reach an unreached area for the gospel.  And the harvest will be plentiful.

Discipleship and evangelism can be confusing subjects these days.  The short and sweet is that a disciple is someone who is transformed by Jesus and follows after him. While discipleship is really a long process, it always begins with some form of evangelism.  In essence, evangelism at its root is simply the ‘good news’ of what Christ did for all of us on the cross.  One big dog theologian, Michael Green, noted that this conveyance of the good news is really a “sacred duty of every Christian.”  Evangelism is a hot topic in Church Planting and in most Christian circles in general.  There are unlimited strategies on the subject.  They range from secretive social gospel thinking on one hand to the huge public mass meetings on the other.  The results of each vary. But even the apparent success of any of them may end in failure unless there is real transformation.  In addition, even successful strategies for reaching out in the past may honestly just not work today.  One such example may be the success of the great Sunday School movements of the 20^th century which are for the most part being replaced today by small groups.

There are tons of books and guides written every year on evangelistic approaches.  But yet, many of these works resemble more of a mass media marketing rather than a biblical teaching. Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not some ultra-legalistic preacher here.  I’ve used and plan to use outreach tools again.  But the question I want to ask in this series of posts is whether or not there is any form of evangelistic principle shown in the New Testament. In short, does the book of Acts, which chronicles the spread of the Church in the first century, offer any help in the pursuit of an evangelistic approach?  Really, this should be a natural place to begin when you think about the profound expansion of the Church in the first century. Paraphrasing one great missionary, “in little more than 10 years, churches were established all over four major provinces of the Roman Empire.”  Imagine that kind of exponential growth and discipleship.  While Luke does not set out in the book of Acts to give us a practice manual, there are a number of principles which we can pick up.  These strategies were not constructed by marketing experts, but were rather simply recorded by Luke as they happened under divine inspiration.  So it of seems that it would behoove modern planters, missionaries, and Christ followers as a whole to examine the work of those who have gone before us. So, in order to have a more positive influence in reaching out, it is imperative that we heed the evangelistic principles seen in Acts.  In this series, we’ll look at four areas:  the message proclaimed, the methods employed, the divine influence, and the relationship between human strategy and divine guidance.

But for the time being, what have you read, heard, experienced, or witnessed that has made the greatest impact on you in the realm of evangelism?

I was doing some research and came across this clip.  Indeed two things I love; the World and Rich Mullins.  Enjoy and ask, “what can I do to share the love of Christ and expand the Kingdom of God the world over?”

Recently we had our first “Official” membership class at the Crossings and it was a lot of fun.  It was just neat to see so many new and old faces excited about what God is doing in our own little part of the Kingdom.  It was neat to see people stepping up to the plate in heartfelt commitment.  Now I understand that in the greater body of Christ there’s been some debate as to what to do with Church membership.  Some claim it is not a Biblical principle and others hold the opposite position and see it as a great practicality for our day.  On my part I lean toward the second camp, so I’ve listed 7 reasons at the bottom of the post as to why we’ve gone with a formal membership at The Crossings.  But I think the greatest reason why I fall on the side of a designated church membership for the located body of Christ actually comes from a true story from our time in the former Soviet Union. 

The specific event actually took place about a year before Deb and I arrived in Moscow to help with a new church and the establishing of a Bible College.  It was the process of forming that new church that shaped how I think about “membership”. 

Lenin at Red Square

When Russia opened up and a number of people in Moscow embraced Jesus Christ, they began to come together as an official church to meet on a regular basis.  The State allowed them to do so but required them to provide evidence showing that they were indeed a legal church entity abiding by the laws.  So the Russian authorities asked for at least a dozen people in the church to come forward and submit copies of their pass ports for proof of the organization’s legitimacy.  This they did.  At least 12 Russian adults who had grown up under the Iron Curtain complied and their information was submitted.  Now that doesn’t sound like too big of an issue for us in the West and especially in the U.S.  I mean, we give our Social Security and Driver’s license numbers often when filling out documents.  But the big deal for these folks is that by giving out their information they were possibly putting their lives on the line if the winds of politics changed in Russia and the old guard Soviet Union came back.  Many of these people had relatives or knew people who were taken by the Soviet KGB in years gone by for religious reasons. So this was a heavy decision for them.  But they cared so much about committing to a local body of believers that they were more than willing to take the risk.  They had a level of discipleship and commitment that many in the US simply don’t understand. 

So when it came down to it, I decided that it was more than acceptable if not expected to ask those wishing to join The Crossings to attend a class and sign a commitment card. 

But for those who are still chewing on this issue, check out the seven reasons below.  What would you add?  (or not add)

 Why Make a Commitment?

 The difference between “attendees” and “belonging” can be summed up in one word:  commitment.

 At The Cypress Crossings Christian Church we recognize the need to be a membership-based church and therefore ask you to commit to membership for a least seven reasons:

1.  A Biblical Reason:  Christ is committed to the church.  “Christ loved the church, and He gave his life for it.” Ephesians 5:25

2.  A Cultural Reason:  It is an antidote in our society.  We live in an age where very few want to be committed to anything; job, marriage, and country.  This attitude has produced a generation of church ‘shoppers and hoppers’.  Membership swims against the current of America’s consumer religion.  It provides a model for our society on the value of belonging.

3.  A Practical Reason:  It defines who can be counted upon.  Every team must have a roster.  Every school must have an enrollment.  Even our country takes a census and requires voter registration.  Membership identifies our family.

4.  A Personal Reason:  It produces spiritual growth.  The New Testament places a major emphasis on the need for Christians to be accountable to each other for spiritual growth.  You cannot be accountable when you are not committed to any specific church family.

5.  A Creative Reason:  It creates the type of future we desire.  Commitments are greatly misunderstood in our culture – they are often seen as something that ‘ties us down’ or holds us back.  But commitments aren’t constraints, they are road maps.  They are the tools that God uses to shape our future!  Our commitments help us create the type of life and future that will glorify God and fulfill us.  We make our commitments, but in the end our commitments make us.

6.  A “Same Page” Reason:  Membership does not mean uniformity, but it does mean unity.  As followers of Christ we are all different and there is really a lot of freedom in the Church of Jesus Christ for all kinds of practices.  But when we commit to the same mission and values of the church we commit to each other as a football team commits to the same play book.  By doing this we avoid division and commit to going forward together in strength and unity.

7.  A Legal Reason:  It shows our willing submission to the authorities.  In order for us to benefit from non-profit status and 501c3 standing, we must be able to clearly illustrate and define to the State what our membership is.  This shows that we are indeed a non-profit entity by their standards.

My oldest son was reading an article the other day in the National Geographic about a city in Siberia which has exploded in growth over the past few decades due to its growing oil production.   Because Debi and I lived in the former Soviet Union for two years after college, I’m always drawn to things happening in that part of the world.  This article was particularly interesting as it seems that nothing ever really happens in Siberia, especially growth.  But because of the natural resources and great leadership, this town which used to be not much more than wooden shacks 40 years ago has grown into a modern city of some 300,000 people.  But the one thing that really ran through my head was, “Wow, someone needs to move there to plant a church.”  If I were in another stage of my life, I would probably; (definitely) have looked into that possibility.  But then it happened; the flesh fought back. I went outside where the wind was blowing a bazillion miles an hour and had second thoughts.  Siberia?  What do we know about Siberia?  The gulag and COLD!  So am I just getting old or is it the fact that I am still suffering from the same brokenness that we all suffer from?  Is the issue just old fashion self-preservation?   Yet Jesus said that if we are going to engage in Kingdom work, then we have to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow him.  So I wondered, why is it that when people start talking about church planting they always want to go to places that are comfortable, exciting,  and “offer the greatest chances of success?”  When it comes to supporting church planting, why do we always want to support projects with a lot of thrill while other places less spectacular are left alone?  Post modern church plant in Madrid?  That will sell.  Duluth, MN?  “Next!”  Is this bent in direction a kingdom pursuit or more of a selfish thing?  What about the COLD, hard places on this globe?  They need to know the grace of Christ as well.  What about the boring places in the world where there’s not a lot of “action” happening?  I just wonder if we’re limiting our kingdom reach because of our own limits we put on church planting.  Are our own profiles, our own standard, our own agendas getting in the way of God’s design?

I’ve got a friend named Mike who has been trying to get a church planted in Bismarck, North Dakota for years.  But who wants to go to Bismarck?  There’s no fanfare there, no palm trees, no babes in bikinis.  But there are plenty of people there who desperately need the love of Christ.  So who would go there?  Well maybe someone who has a passion for Jesus and getting folks connected with Him no matter where they are.  Maybe someone who sees what could be and is passionate about making that happen no matter what the cost.  For all of us, maybe if we stop thinking about the flesh and start looking for open doors, passionate hearts, great needs, and divine connections above self-preservation we might see a whole lot more churches planted and people embracing the love of Christ.  Maybe if we stopped prioritizing our man made strategies over the leading of the Holy Spirit we might actually reach people in places all over the world.  Just maybe.  Just maybe.  So; anyone up for Siberia?  I think I can get you connected.

I got a link from a friend the other day to another church planter’s blog and in one of his recent posts he talked about what kind of church he’d like to be a part of.  I’ve read a lot of similar things in the past and can see where this guy is coming from.  He’s got a lot of good ideas and shares his heart well.  But I have noticed something that’s missing a lot these days, especially with anything connected with post-modern, emerging, or emergent churches, and that’s the issue of doctrine.  (Dan Kimball seems to be a great exception to this tendency)  While I understand that doctrine by itself is dead, I get the feel that there are a lot of folks who are throwing out truth for the sake of emotion, relativism, and pragmatism.  But what we find in the first church is that they “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.”  (Acts 2:42) In other words, they were concerned about truth and it seems that if we’re going to be authentic church today and not simply new clubs, then we have to seriously pursue the apostle’s teachings ourselves.  In short, truth really does matter.

I’m excited about attending an upcoming “Turbo” church planting event at NorthWood Church in Keller this Thursday. The lead presenter is a guy named Bob Robertswho has been used by God in a great way not only to plant NorthWood over 20 years ago, but to assist in and send out over a hundred planters. I’m looking forward to gleaning some more wisdom on the subject and exploring more into the future direction God is calling us to. One thing that I am convinced of is that we are going to be involved in church planting whether that’s doing another plant or leading an established church into this realm of service. Along those lines, I’ve been asked a few times if there’s really a need for such a thing, especially in an area like DFW which has “tons of churches”. I’ve always told folks asking that it’s a good question and then given them some things to chew on. Without too much research, here are just four reasons for planting that immediately come to mind.

1. The existing churches we have now can’t keep up with population growth.

2. New churches are more focused on Evangelism.

3. The sad reality is that many of the established churches have plateaued or are dying and are not willing to make the necessary changes to reach out and grow.

4. The culture and ethnic makeup of the US is changing. We no longer have to go across the ocean to find different cultures; they are coming here. Therefore we need new churches which will reach these new groups. (This is a big one for me)

One of my true heart passions is world evangelism. In tune with this, I’ve pasted below a recent post from one of my favorite blogs to keep up with. The guy’s name is Bob Roberts and he’s got a lot of experience and insight to consider. The link is at Glocal.net and the post is below. Enjoy.

To See a Transformed World – or NOT!

When we go into ministry it is driven by passion, love, vision, and determination to see God work in our lives and see radical transformation through Jesus Christ in our local ministries and throughout the world. Too often it ends in frustration, disappointment, and defeat. The problem is not our heart or desire or even willingness – it’s our paradigm and understanding of our world. If we would see transformation:

1. We need a clear understanding of what the Great Commission is and what it isn’t. In my upcoming book that will be out in a few months I deal with what the Great Commission is – and move it from religious preacher work to disciple society engagement. Our current western understanding of the Great Commission is limiting us in being able to be a part of things where the Gospel is going viral.

2. We need to learn how God is working in the rest of the world and what the church looks like and how we contextualize that to where we are. Right now an Indonesian pastor is mentoring our church. It means that there are some sins in our culture that have infiltrated our church that we have to address in order to be a part of what God is doing.

3. We have to open our circles to others who may not look just like us or think just like us. I’m not talking about compromising the Bible or Jesus. I am talking about living beyond our own personal tribes.

4. We have to understand faith in a globalized context. All religions are all places and how we speak of faith is crucial because whatever we say, we say to everyone because of the internet, etc. That’s the book I’m working on right now!

5. We have to move from an 18th century model of missions of a 21st century model of global engagement (Glocalization). Businessmen and college students get this quicker and closer than most.

6. We have to be filled with the Holy Spirit daily, radically, with abandonment to follow God where he leads and respond in obedience immediately to the doors he opens. That messes up our plans and stifles “our” ministries – but it does get the Great Commission fulfilled. God already has his plan, and we must follow his, not ours.

7. We must not be overwhelmed by the world. I used to think guys didn’t engage the world because they were ignorant. I don’t believe, that they were lazy – I don’t believe that, they were self-centered and thought it was all about their own local ministry (I still believe that!), but I’m convinced, at least with young pastors the reason is two-fold. First, the world is overwhelming. Where do you start? Second, the models are outdated and they know it and they don’t know where to turn so they adopt the attitude that it is better to not get involved in something that is dying and outdated.