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Acts 20:28 and the Dilemma of Church Growth

This morning I met with a new group of Summit "lay elders" and Summit Life Group coaches. The reason: I feel our church to be in a dilemma. The dilemma is wanting to reach as many people as possible as fast as possible and, at the same time, to become an integrated, New Testament, community-based, member-caring church. (God has created this dilemma for us: our growth last Sunday was up 57% from the same week last year. We have seen a large number of people trust Christ in the last couple of months.)

In many ways, these Summit leaders and others like them are the way out of that dilemma for me.

Paul experienced, I think, the same dilemma in Acts 20:28 when he said to a group of new Ephesian elders, "Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood."

Can you feel the gravitas, the passion, Paul speaks to these men with? Paul, I'm sure felt responsibility for the Ephesian believers because he had planted the church. But now he was in a place where he personally could not oversee each of the new believers. So, he is pleading with other overseers to do his job for him.

In the same way, as pastor of the Summit, I feel responsible for those of the "flock" God has put under my care. I know that one day I will have to answer to God for each of the people who became a part of our community. If God brought people into our fold who were sick and needed help and I didn’t even know about it, He will hold me responsible. If members of our fold openly disgrace the name of Christ and I did nothing about it because I didn’t even know about it, I will have to answer to God for that. But the church is too big for me to oversee each member myself.

There are 2 lazy ways pastors deal with this dilemma... i.e., the dual charge to "reach people" and "shepherd the flock."

The first is to say, “Forget all the responsibilities of shepherding. Who cares if people in our church aren't growing, developing, being helped when they are in need, or if we're not preserving the integrity of the flock by church discipline. Let’s just reach people as fast as possible. Let's grow by reaching people for Jesus and saving them from hell." This, however, is an egregious dereliction of duty. It is in direct contradiction to what the New Testament says a church should be like. Jesus described shepherds who are "hirelings" who leave their responsibilities to the flock when it is not personally convenient. These "shepherds" are simply using the flock for their own purposes--big audiences, notoriety, big salaries, etc.

The second way to deal with the dilemma is to “limit” the growth a church has, so that the senior pastor can know and be involved with each person and feel like it is a manageable-sized flock. In my opinion, that is a cold, heartless approach to the Great Commission. We want God to move mightily here. You don't see Peter saying, on behalf of the 120 believers, to the 3000 new believers in Acts 2, "Whoa, whoa... we can't handle all of you! We can each only disciple 1... so the first 120 of you are welcome, the rest of you need to find another church. We can't really disciple all of you yet... and we're committed to not reaching more people than we can disciple." (I've heard that exact phrase from a pastor!)

There is a third way, and that is to do what Paul did in Acts 20:28 and devote myself to equipping other men (as elders) and women who can share in this mantle of oversight. That means we equip overseers and pastors to be involved in the lives of people in our small groups in such a way that they...

• Know the names and families of people in the small groups under their charge
• Pray for each member of their small groups by name
• Will be aware when they fall into sin or have a burden
• Will be aware when someone in one of their groups need ministry

Essentially, what I laid onto this group this morning is a shepherd’s mantle for the Summit Church. It is a shepherd's mantle that Jesus has given first to me. Now, like Paul, I am sharing it with other faithful leaders. But I still have to answer to God for it. So I told them this morning that I am personally bequeathing to them this mantle, and told them that if they are not going to take it and execute its duties diligently, PLEASE give it back to me and I'll pray and ask God to provide others that will carry it worthily... because I have to answer to God for them.

Summit, this is what I mean by "being committed to growing bigger and smaller at the same time."

The question, of course, that this begs is: Are you a member of the church? Are you in a Summit Life Group? If you're not in the Summit, are you a covenant member and actively involved in your church?

The community Jesus died to create is not a body of Sunday morning spectators wowed and inspired by a performance, but a family of believers. You won't benefit from His protective oversight through His church until you are an actively involved member.

Click here for more info on Summit Life Groups...

Writing Stuff Down

I am a consummate note taker. I carry around a little tiny pocket notebook and a pen at all times. I do this for two main reasons:

• I never know when I will encounter a good idea... be it for a sermon, for the church, or something to do for my wife. Sometimes it is on a television show, sometimes while reading the Bible, sometimes in the midst of working out, sometimes when trying to merge onto the interstate. The best ones come in the shower or when I wake up at 3 a.m. Yes, I do feel like a total dork when having a casual conversation with a friend and I pull out a notebook to write something down, but that's better than the alternative of racking my brain later trying to remember what they said. As I have explained before, I've only had 3 or 4 really good completely original brilliant thoughts in my life. The rest I've learned from other people and written down.
• One of the greatest causes of stress in my life, I think, is trying to remember so many things. I have a short attention span as it is, and my RAM seems pretty small. I hate, hate, hate the feeling of knowing that earlier that day I had a great idea and now can't remember it anymore. I get such a peaceful feeling after having committed something to paper. As a high school teacher told me, "Faint ink is better than a good memory."

When I read books, I jot down all my thoughts in the front cover so later I can go back and find them. After all, it doesn't matter how many books you've read or how many you've own, but if you can access the info that is in them when you need it. Yes, it is a little annoying to read and take notes, but, again, it's better than losing all that material. Proverbs says, "The lazy man fails to collect what he shot while hunting." In other words, if you spend the time "hunting" the info in reading the book, why not spend a few more minutes "capturing" the information in a format you can access later? Otherwise, you are greatly reducing the profit your reading is giving you.

When I listen to sermons in the car, I carry around a dictaphone.

It has been a huge help to me... I have also noted in the reading of biographies that a lot of thinkers much smarter than me did the same thing: Abraham Lincoln carried around random slips of paper to write on and even died with his pocket full of notes, as did Charles Darwin; both Blaise Pascal and Jonathan Edwards were known to arrive home with a couple dozen hand written notes pinned to their jackets. Yes, they looked like dorks, but we remember them hundreds of years after their deaths and don't even know the names of the cool people anymore.

How do you capture information? How do you reduce the stress caused by trying to remember something?

Whether God is Really Dead and What You Can Do About It

Here are two great short articles on how to confront an unbelieving, skeptical culture from the latest issue of Christianity Today.

The first article is called "A New Day for Apologetics" Premise: Christians went through a phase where they tended to think that gatling gun apologetics were the answers for everything (think Evidence that Demands a Verdict--Josh McDowell's "end all, discussion-stopping proof" that Jesus was God.) The reaction to that has been to say that apologetics have no value because God is mysterious and Christianity is weird but doggonit I believe it... (think how some people used Blue Like Jazz.) This article is a great, biblically-balanced perspective that discusses what is a good and appropriate role for apologetics.

The second article is called "God is not dead yet." It is by one of the most insightful Christian apologists alive, William Lane Craig.

These would certainly make a vigorous, but helpful, "start your work week" read.

Hope for RDU... the results

Week of Hope was awesome. Special thanks to Brad O’Brien, Matt Miglarese and Lori Perdue and over 1900 of you that charged into the community to serve it during the week of July 6–12, 2008. Here are the highlights:

• Over 60 small groups took $100 and found a way to serve and love their neighbors
• Nearly 2000 volunteers did something during the week.

The stories are pouring in (You can share your story and read others at www.hopefordurham.info).  Here are some of the coolest facts we’ve heard regarding this week:

• The fact that this Durham-Herald Sun article about the “week of hope” is still on of the Top 5 Most Emailed stories on the Herald-Sun’s website at the time of this writing. I’m not sure about the Oprah comparison... but this is a great example of our city looking at us and saying “Uhhh...We don’t believe what they do, but how do you explain THAT???????” 
• The fact that some of the volunteers were people who don’t go to church at all, but saw the news stories and decided to show up to serve.  Without a doubt, my favorite thing about doing community ministry is that it puts me right next to people who would never darken the doors of a church.  I don’t know which Summit members interacted with these volunteers, but I received an email from one woman who was quite impressed by the Summit volunteers and was disappointed that “more communities don’t have this type of support."
• The comment from several nurses in the UNC Neurosciences Division that “they had never had someone they didn’t really know do something this nice for them.”  What a glimpse of the Gospel they caught!  This Summit small group provided them with a physical picture of how Jesus, although we didn’t know him very well, did something REALLY nice for us at the cross….and that’s what the “week of hope” was all about. 
• This note from Kathy Kirkpatrick, the principal of Elementary School Merrick-Moore: I am in awe of the amazing turn-out for the projects at Merrick-Moore. I am also quite grateful! The school looks wonderful.  I can’t tell you how special this is. “Thank you” just isn’t big enough – it can’t fully express what is in my heart.  So, I looked in the thesaurus for a bigger word,  and it could only give me synonyms for “thanks.” This turned out to be good, because the words that hit me were “blessing” and “grace.” The blessings you bestowed on Merrick-Moore are phenomenal.   And, the grace with which you worked was unparalleled. Thank you so very much. I wish I lived in Durham, because yours is a church I would enjoy attending.
  
• The number of small groups that told me they want to start planning group-sized service projects on a regular basis.  One group even staggered the spending of their $100 so that it would fund one project per week for the next 5 weeks.  At the Summit we want our small groups to be not only a place for personal growth, but also a vehicle for doing ministry, and it’s exciting to see groups expanding their focus!
• The great TV news stories on NBC17 (on the 6:00 and 10:00 news!) and NC-14. We couldn't find a link to the NBC17, but here is the article at NC14!

Thanks, Summit and other volunteers, for showing off the beauty of the Gospel in RDU!

The Strange, Illuminating End of 1 John

The last verse of 1 John in the Bible is the strangest end to any book I've ever read. Or, at least it first seemed so.

John's whole first letter is about what it looks like when you've really met Jesus and been changed by Him. He makes the point that when Jesus has changed us, we have a hunger to know God, a hatred for sin, and the desire to pour our lives out for others as Jesus poured His out for us. This love for God and others consumes us, propels us, and keeps us away from sin and wordliness. True Christianity consists of growing in those things.

He ends the book with the tart phrase, "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." (1 John 5:21). This is the first time he's mentioned idolatry in the book. That means one of two things: 1. John, at the end of his very thematic letter,is throwing in a random "p.s." that has nothing to do with the theme (i.e. like putting "Go Heels" at the end of a sermon); or, 2. That one command is crucial to executing the things John has proscribed in the rest of the book.

I think the latter option is definitely the right one. It is idolatry--the love of the things of the world, that will quench our love for God and people and our hatred for sin. It is not merely bad things that darken and deaden our heart toward God, but love of the things of this world. John even explains this in 1 John 2:15, "Do not love the world... for if any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." Or, as Jesus explained, "You cannot love God and money."

Many Christians know to avoid pornography and drugs and other flagrant sins. But how many realize that love of the world--its money, creature comforts, prestige and respect--deadens more people's love for God and squeezes out true Christianity than anything else?

John calls us "little children," which means in this area we probably aren't as accomplished and grown-up spiritually as we think we are. When it comes to the world's ability to slowly deaden our hearts toward God, we are like defenseless little children. The world--it's money and prestige--is not a plaything. Little children (that's us) should stay away from it.

Summit Church, I plead with you--avoid idolatry! Beware materialism. Beware learning to love money and the comforts it brings. Beware too much enjoyment of the praise and respect of others. As C. S. Lewis said, "Wealth slowly knits a man's heart to this world." There is NOTHING, in my opinion, that threatens to quench the work of the Spirit of God in us and through us more than that. FLEE IDOLATRY.

Fellow pastors--avoid the ice cold clutches of money, prestige, and creature comforts. Nothing diminishes spiritual power like the love of the world.

Go Heels. and Duke. and occasionally State.

Thoughts on Evangelism, pt. 3: How "Accepting Christ" Leaves Many People Lost

Here's my final thought for the moment about the state of the preaching of the Gospel in American evangelical churches. (Special thanks to research assistant Mike McDaniel for the great follow up to our first thought last Friday).

The Cross-less Evangelical Gospel

Very few presentations of the "Gospel" by evangelicals that I hear mention, in any substantive way, the cross of Christ. Most "evangelistic" sermons I hear--whether at churches, student events, college campuses and  during crusades-- do talk about our "need" of Christ. For example, I hear how much better our lives would be with Jesus; how He's the only we can really "change"; how He's started a revolution we need to be a part of; even how we are eternally doomed if we don't receive Him as Lord and Savior. But hardly ever do I hear what it means to be guilty before God and separated from Him and how our only hope is found in what God in Christ has done to save us.

In listening to the Gospel presentations of some of the most "effective" evangelistic ministries in America, it is not uncommon to not even hear the death of Christ and an explanation of what it means mentioned in the call to salvation. I hear a lot of talk about "accepting Christ"--again, because He can free us from addictions, how He wants to use us to reach the world, how He can give us purpose, how real disciples love the poor, and etc. But nothing about God's righteousness, our hopeless guilt, and Christ's awesome substitutionary work.

We have turned "accepting Christ" into the saving act itself, rather than the substitutionary work of Christ on our behalf. Now, it seems, "accepting Christ" saves us, even if we don't know we are "accepting" about Him. It's like we evangelicals have gone Catholic and turned the "salvation prayer" into a kind of Protestant ritual that bestows grace whether or not we understand the reality of it. Or, if you are familiar with 20th century liberal Protestantism, we evangelicals act (in practice) like Rudolph Bultmann who said that salvation had nothing to do with Jesus' historical death but His dying and raising again existentially in our hearts. We act as if the existential act of "accepting Christ" saves us rather than what Christ did 2000 years ago on the cross. In other words, we're calling people to accept Christ and be saved without ever really preaching the Gospel to them.

The Gospel is not primarily about accepting Christ. Calling people to "accept Christ" is simply a way, and not really even a good way, of expressing what it means to throw ourselves on the mercy of God as promised to us in Christ's substitutionary death. That is the Gospel that must be understood for someone to properly "accept Christ." People to whom we are speaking don't naturally "get" that, either--it goes against every fiber of our self-righteous, self-justifying beings. Our natural proclivity, our innate religion, believes "I obey, therefore I will be accepted." The Gospel says exactly the opposite: "I AM accepted; THEREFORE I obey." We can't preach the Gospel without explaining the great truth of Christ's substitutionary work and our reception of it by simple faith in and surrender to what He did. Any other "conversion" experience does what Jesus condemned the Pharisees for, i.e. makes the convert "twice a son of hell." Is it not possible this condemnation of Christ (Matt 23:15) is applicable to the evangelical church at large?

One of my favorite Bible commentators, Graeme Goldsworthy, says this:

"There are evangelicals who are so earnest in calling for decisions for Jesus that they seem to forget to tell people why they should decide for Jesus. I remember listening to a speaker at an evangelistic meeting whose only mention of the death of Jesus was a passing reference in his closing prayer. I was acting as an advisor to follow up on the after-meeting counseling. I spoke to a young couple who had heard the talk, gone out to the front, been 'counseled' and then brought to me. They obviously had not heard any gospel in either the address or the counseling. They had no idea about being justified by faith in the doing and dying of Christ. It seems the decision can become everything. People are exhorted to turn to Christ, to receive Christ, to ask Jesus into their hearts, and the like, even when they have been given no substantial idea at all of who Jesus was and what He has done to save us." (Gospel-Centered Hermeneutics, 173-74).

I don't mean to denigrate, at all, calling for a decision when we preach the Gospel. The Gospel, properly preached, always calls for a decision. I'm just saying that if we're not leading people to "decide" to stop trusting themselves and start trusting Christ's death and resurrection alone for salvation, whatever decision we're leading people to make is the wrong one.

Again, do you think I'm being too hard on this? What has your experience been like?

Thoughts on Evangelism, pt. 2: "4 Circles" Revisited

Guest Blog: Mike McDaniel, Ministry Assistant

I once heard John Piper pose the question: If you could go to heaven, have spectacular sunsets, no more disease, no more depression, all the friends that have gone before you, all the toys that you’ve ever wanted, but Jesus would not be there, would it be okay with you? Would you still want to go?

Now it may be easy to hear that and say, “Of course not,” but think about it…What do you crave? Love? Acceptance? Security? The praise of others? Success? What if you could have those things, just leave Jesus out of the picture?

I have to be honest – give me a smokin’ hot wife, a successful ministry, 2.5 kids, and some land to retire on in Texas – I can’t say I wouldn’t be tempted…which is probably why God will never give me all those things (I can only hope he gives me some of them).

I think this is exactly the flaw that JD was talking about in many modern evangelism techniques like James Choung’s “4 Circles” (see previous post). In attempting to be more relevant and attractional (not that there’s anything wrong with being relevant or attractional), such models fail to challenge one of the chief idols of the heart, self-centeredness. I come to Jesus because of what He can do for me. Now it’s one thing to begin there. Let’s not forget that Jesus often approached people on the basis of their need. The feeding of the 5000 is a great example. But Jesus didn’t end there – He made it clear that these encounters were meant to reveal something more important than their perceived needs – Himself. That’s why Jesus says in John 6:26, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” They missed the point. They came looking for another hook-up, and Jesus said, “I’m the bread of life.” Unfortunately, they were too concerned about their empty stomachs to notice their empty souls.

After all, isn’t that exactly the problem with a man-centered Gospel? It fails to take sin seriously. God is the Gospel, and it’s only by getting a proper view of God that we can get a proper view of our sin. And it’s seeing our sin more clearly that leads us to a greater appreciation of God’s grace. And that gives God the glory.

On the flipside, I agree with JD that there are a lot of positives to the “4 Circles” model. What are some ways that we could take this model and improve on it?

Thoughts on Evangelism, pt. 1: James Choung's "4 Circles"

One of the things for which I am grateful about conservative evangelicals is there really seems to be a general understanding that evangelism needs to remain foremost in our mission. I think that is a genuine, preserving work of grace the Spirit of God has done among us. So, I hope that what I write the next couple of days will not come across as a scathing, holier-than-thou condemnation of the evangelistic efforts of modern evangelicals. But I have made two discoveries in the last two weeks which I find to be more than a little disturbing.

1. We seem to forget that the Gospel first and foremost is about God

I know that seems like an obvious statement, but let me explain what I mean. Christianity Today's most recent issue (July 2008--an overall fantastic issue) has an intriguing story about a "new" Gospel presentation called "From Four Laws to Four Circles." The article details the approach authored by InterVarsity's James Choung. Rather than the standard "Four Spiritual Laws" (1. God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life; 2. Sin has separated you from God; 3. Jesus died to forgive our sins; 4. We must personally accept Christ as Savior), Choung suggests 4 circles (you can see it here). They are:

• We were designed for good
• We are damaged by evil
• We are restored for better
• We are sent together to heal

I like the approach because it is a direct presentation of the 4 major Biblical themes: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. Thus, this Gospel presentation shows that the Gospel addresses society's problems and not just our personal feelings of dissatisfaction. This approach also demonstrates that our decision to follow Jesus is not simply a matter of returning to personal piety, but includes a call to be involved in the mission of God. It emphasizes discipleship, not just quick decision. This is not only a more fully biblical presentation of the Gospel, it is also, in my opinion, a more "relevant" presentation for Western culture, which is asking the question of what "earthly good" the "heavenly Gospel" can do. Community service is all the rage right now, after all.

The major omission in this presentation, however, is that it leaves the centrality of God out of the Gospel. You can see it in its first point: "We were designed for good." That is true. But even more importantly, we were designed for GOD. 

The result of our rebellion against God is that our world is marred by destruction and evil. The fruit of our living for God is that we lived in peace and harmony with each other and our world. The root of those problems, however, is that we have have rejected God's rightful rule and flouted His glory.

In other words, the "4 circles" starts with a man-centered view of the world. They present the Gospel as if our main problem was disharmony with creation and our primary need was to be restored to the good we were created. These are important aspects of the Gospel, but the main "problem" that the Gospel addresses is that we have offended a holy God by trampling on His rightful glory and before whose righteous wrath we stand in hopeless condemnation. The main "benefit" it offers is restoration to that God and the preservation of His justice.

It's not that anything in Choung's presentation of the 4 circles is wrong, per se, just that it presents the Gospel in a way that makes the creation the focus of the Gospel rather than the Creator. It fails to confront the idolatrous, man-centered worldview in which fallen man lives. Previous evangelical presentations of the Gospel simply presented Jesus as the great "need-meeter" without addressing our self-centeredness; this presentation simply morphs that into a "He'll meet your needs and then others' needs too" form--still without addressing our self-ward focus.

Most distressing to me is that in the presentation, when the question of "why Jesus is necessary to salvation" (i.e. why can't we just fix our problems ourselves?), the answer given has NOTHING to do with the righteous anger of a just and holy God. It just has to do with needing strength to perform the healing.

In short, it leaves the centrality of God out of the Gospel... and any presentation of the Gospel that does not make God the main point of the Gospel is a woefully deficient Gospel, don't you think? Paul said that the primary point of the Gospel was a demonstration of God's glory and that its primary motif was the satisfaction of God's just wrath at our failure to live for His glory: "to demonstrate God's justice at the present time, that He is both just and the justifier of the one who puts faith in Jesus" (Romans 3:25). This Gospel presentation would be greatly improved by leaving out a single "o": from "we were created for good" to "we were created for God."

What do you think? Am I being too hard on this?

Staying one place for a long time in ministry

I am grateful for friends who have modeled staying in one place for the duration of their lives in ministry. While I realize we can never tell God where we're going to stay or go, I think the mentality of planting your life permanently some place is a good thing for most of us pastors and our churches. I've heard that pastors consistently OVERESTIMATE what they can accomplish at a church in 5 years, and consistently UNDERESTIMATE what they can accomplish in 20 years. Both of the men I'm going to mention have been in ministry at Providence long enough that they have established deep patterns of ministry that are really effective. I've been at the Summit for about 6 years, which means I'm over the hard part now and that I've got 14 more sweet years ahead of me!

The two friends that I'm talking about are David Horner and Steve Wright, senior pastor and student pastor of Providence Baptist here in Raleigh. Both have also recently released a "magnum opus" of sorts I wanted to commend to you. Baker books just released David Horner's A Practical Guide to Life and Ministry, which is a theological reflection on what it means to be a pastor. Steve Wright came out with ReThink, which is a new approach to student ministry. Steve's book was recently used by the staffs of both C. J. Mahaney and John Piper's churches.

Good stuff.

The WEEK OF HOPE for RDU is THIS week! We still need volunteers for our public school projects and for all our church-wide projects on Friday and Saturday afternoons! Click here to signup.

World's Largest Kazoo Band

A first for me: making the Guinness Book of World Records... At the Challenge 08 conference at which I spoke last week, we set an official Guinness record: LARGEST KAZOO BAND EVER... WITH OVER 5200 PEOPLE PLAYING 'AMAZING GRACE' ON THE KAZOO FOR 4 MINUTES STRAIGHT. I even got to help lead it.

Click here to get a peep.

A proud moment. I'm compiling it in a file for "things I hope my daughters will be proud of me for."