Start with the Society - Not the Church
I guess I need to be careful here--this is an entire chapter coming out in my book The Multiplying Church in February. But, it’s true. Last night I was teaching our interns that when you start a church you should never focus on the preacher and church or you basically become a “Sunday event.” But that your focus should be on the disciple engaging the society that will be served. “Church” should be the culmination of living incarnationally holistically touching the hurting people of society. For the most part in America, we start churches apart from the society and do things thereafter along the way for society as someone has interest or self-interest. One of the key differences between missions and missional is the direction, focus, and the beneficiaries of the work. This was driven home to me by an email I was shown from one of our members who has been trying to minister to this person. Upon reading about the home makeovers they said, “I just can’t get over this. What a wonderful thing to do. I am so impressed with your church giving back to the community! Many give and do for missions (which I know your church does, also), but, so few actually do for the community.” Did you catch that? So few actually do for the community.” Did you catch that? There is the perception that missions and serving the community are different! I wonder why?
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Oct 25, 2007 at 05:24 AM
Hi, Bob. I think serving the community, first, is the key to effective evangelism and church planting. Jesus instructed his disciples to heal the sick, cast out the demons, raise the dead, feed the hungry, visit the imprisoned and preach that the Kingdom of God is near. Somehow, in the past hundred years or so, we have divided serving the community and saving the lost into two separate camps. To save people without serving them establishes a crippled church that will not obey Christ's commands related to community. To serve the community and not share Christ puts a Band-Aid on a terminal wound. We help a person find a new job, but don’t share the Gospel, and they end up in hell for eternity.
Church is not church unless it is both serving the community and proclaiming the Gospel unapologetically. No apologies needed when our actions match our words.
Blessings!
David Watson
Oct 25, 2007 at 06:13 AM
You are so right on.
Not only is this the key to effective evangelism, but it is the key that unlocks the hard hearted to being able to hear the message of Jesus.
We have all heard it said, they care what you know, until they know how much you care and that is so true with our communities. Our community needs to know that we care what happens in our neighborhoods... our communities need to see our words in action... long before they ever hear the words out of our mouths.
I think one of the keys to an effective missional church is for a church to live out the very Word of God that they teach and preach on Sundays. They need to see the church living it out Monday- Saturday. If our churches are not known for living out the Word of God... then everything else we say and do will be not matter.
Oct 25, 2007 at 06:47 AM
I just wonder sometimes how we got so far off based from this. In our former agrarian culture maybe because we raised barns together we were more concerned. Perhaps our industrialization and segmentation and materialism all combined to create the perfect storm for the church where we could fill it up - but be more of a barge floating on top of water that is still, instead of a raft tackling a fast river. Thanks for your words David - I love your ministry and believe in it big time.
Oct 25, 2007 at 08:19 AM
Bob, you're saying exactly what I have been thinking about. I'm a missionary in Swaziland and for the past two years we've been focussing at least 70% of our efforts on the community in an attempt to help those affected by HIV and AIDS. We do this through six home-based caring projects spread throughout the southern part of the country. Three of the projects are situated in places where we ourselves do not have a church. In one of those places we have now been invited to start a church. I'm quite excited about this, because this will be the first place where we will have planted a church after becoming involved in the community. We haven't done it yet, so we will have to see how things work out, but I have a gut feeling that we may be able to start a church with much greater credibility than in the past where we went into a community, pitched a tent, preached for a few weeks and then planted a church (which usually takes very long to establish itself). You can have a look at what we are doing at http://www.swazimission.co.za/English/aids.htm
Oct 25, 2007 at 07:32 PM
Hi, Arnau. We have seen more than 2700 churches started in East and West Africa in the past 27 months. The majority of the work begins with ministry, which we define as meeting the felt needs of the community. This is sometimes education, agriculture, business, relief, spiritual warfare, and/or more. When we enter a community we are seeking only one person, who we call the Person of Peace (Luke 10, Matthew 10, and Luke 9). The POP has been prepared by the Holy Spirit to receive the Gospel into the community, and in turn takes the Gospel to the community. We do no preaching, witnessing, tract or Bible distribution, or literature sales. We pray and ask God to reveal the POP. When we find this person we stay with him/her and his/her family. We use Story Telling or Bible Studies to assist the family in discovering who God is, our separation from Him because of sin, and His provision for our salvation. Our average time from entering a community to seeing a church established with leadership is less than 26 weeks. These churches usually replicate within the first year. There is a lot of training during the first two years of a church's life.
Globally, we have seen our teams and those we have trained start more than 40,000 churches in the last 14 years. The average size of these churches within two years is 64. The most responsive groups to our methods are often considered to be the most difficult to reach. And it usually starts with ministry.
Blessings!
David Watson
Oct 25, 2007 at 10:26 PM
[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]-----
Oct 26, 2007 at 09:09 AM
I would agree St. Francis Assisi(sp) said "preach the gospel everyday and if you have to use words" we as Christ ones are often times are watched more than we are listened to. Therefore we need to be birthing (can I say that of a church)more churches from ministry.
Oct 26, 2007 at 01:23 PM
David, thanks for sharing your ideas. I would love to understand some more on what and how you are doing it. How do you know when you have found the POP? Is this usually someone already respected within the community. Let me explain why I'm asking: In one of the areas where a strong home-based caring project has been established, we also have an extremely good relationship with the member of parliament of that area. He is going out of his way to help us. He has now invited us into that area to start a church. Would such a person possibly be a POP or do you prefer to stay away from traditional leaders? If you say it takes on average 26 weeks to establish a congregation, does this mean the time since identifying the POP and spending time with the family and then after about 26 weeks more people are identified?
Oct 26, 2007 at 04:59 PM
The St. Francis of Assisi quote sounds really good. The problem is, he was wrong. If you do not combine word with actions, you allow people to interpret your actions however they will. 1 Chronicles 16.7-36 outlines commands for God's people as they function as the church. Almost every one of them requires speaking or singing of some sort. Additionally, the Great Commission says that we are to be 'teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.' Yes, we have to back up teaching with action, but speaking/proclaiming/teaching provides the context for our actions.
We need to be careful with the appropriateness of our speech, but we still have to speak. I've seen St. Francis' quote used far too often as an excuse to stay silent when we ought to speak up. We cannot plant churches in silence.
Oct 26, 2007 at 09:47 PM
Paul, I'm so glad you said that, because I agree with you. There are times when we need to keep quiet and just do what God wants us to do, but the time will definitely have to come when we need to speak, otherwise people will never understand what it is that motivates us to care for others. I know all the classical stories (Francis of Assisi, the missionary who died and when they later heard about Jesus said that Jesus was buried in their village, etc) but I think we need to lose our fear of speaking about Christ. It is when we speak without DOING what Christ would have done, that there is a problem. Then, in the words of Paul, "I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal." Sometimes I will speak more and other times I will do more, but the two cannot be seperated from each other.
Oct 26, 2007 at 09:58 PM
Hi, Arnau. Identifying the POP does take practice. Read each of the movements forward in Acts. Identify the characteristics of the person(s) that the Holy Spirit used to advance the Kingdom. The most common trait is that the family was introduced to Christ and was baptized, and then the community was introduced. Family based/forcused evangelism is the norm. Hospitality, leadership, interest in spiritual matters, and a deep desire to know God seem to be a part of the characteristics of the POP, but these vary from person to person.
When a political leader is involved, this person may be a Prince of Goodwill - one who protects the rights of Christians and makes it possible for them to do ministry in hostile environments. Your member of parliament may be the POP, but also may be the Prince of Goodwill.
The 26 weeks starts when the POP is identified. The methods used are critical. We use a Discovery/Inductive Bible Study method that allows local leaders to start and sustain the work. Outside leaders only facilitate the process. They do not do the work, but train local leaders to do the work.
It takes 30 hours to cover all the details of the process we use to start churches. This is intensive Bible Study, and we must commit to do what the Bible says regardless of our traditions. Sometimes this can be very difficult. Much of what we practice in church and our denominations is tradition, and not Biblical. We must focus on obeying the commands of Christ, not teaching our denominational doctrines or theology. Redeeming local culture, not introducing foreign culture is critical. What the Bible says to do, we do it. What the Bible says not to do, we don't do it. We don't teach anything else. We avoid introducing anything of a cultural nature to the mix. This allows the Gospel to expand/replicate more effectively in the host culture.
Blessings!
David
Oct 27, 2007 at 08:27 AM
I agree we need to balance our actions with words, yes too often we back down from speaking and our actions are left to be interpreted in a vacuum. That being said my experience has sadly been that of either we are all talk and no go, or we shoot out the party line and then end it all with God loves you and never show that love. After faith without works is dead
Oct 27, 2007 at 08:57 AM
David, thanks for explaining this in so much detail. Do you follow a specific Bible Study course or do you adpat it according to circumstances?
Oct 29, 2007 at 01:13 PM
As the old saying goes, 'they won't care how much you know, until they know how much you care'. Likewise, our society or culture 'will not care how good our church is, until they see and experience our church doing good'!
It is very convicting to think about how much we talk about, cast vision about, preach about, and teach about serving others and being missional in comparison to how much we actually are doing.
Thanks for the inspiration and motivation! Blessings!
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