TMC - Highlight #11 - Start a Church for the World
“I feel called to start a church in . . . ?” In reality, you should feel called to BASE a church in . . . for the world. I was just in California with a lot of pastors from large, influential churches. Each night we’d talk about different things in the ministry. Multi-sites was the #1 thing they talked about. Yes. They--not me--not my bag. In a different use of the term, the church is multi-site globally. There wasn’t a whole lot of discussion on that.
For the majority of pastors in the U.S., missions is an add on--particularly global missions. It’s one of the many things the church does and, frankly, one of the last things in which many new churches get involved.
The Great Commission is more than just for your city, town, or suburb. Furthermore, it was given to every single Christian, not just missionaries, agencies, or denominations. Therefore, that means every single church is a missions base to the ends of the world--or it’s not in the fight at all.
Churches that are not global are about to miss out on one of the greatest movements of the world. It has already begun in the East and the South. There has never been a global church planting movement. I’m convinced it’s going to happen. For the most part, church planting movements have been tied to tribes and nations, but there are many flat places in the world where everyone connects: airports, global cities, city centers, cyberspace, societal domains; wherever this happens, there will be churches that will surf all nations!
The driving motivation for starting churches in America is to reach the lost and stem the tide of churches closing. This is not enough. I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion these churches will not “save” us, they could even hasten our death and backfire on us. People don’t want to be viewed as numbers and notches on our belts. It’s too small a picture of God, too small a view of what God wants to do in the world, too small an understanding of reconciliation void of transformation. Evangelism is the fruit of discipleship. The church is a gathering of disciples living a transformed life, taking it to broken people and communities and seeing the reconciliation of all things. When that happens, evangelism has moved from being a verbal presentation to a living demonstration. When that happens, you love your city and the world and you live in both. It’s oK for the bridegroom to love the bride. As the bride, we need to love the Savior, as the head, we need to be about His mission--the world.
Blog Categories
Search Glocalnet
Support
Partners
Comments
May 23, 2008 at 05:11 AM
Bob,
What are some suggestions for helping churches catch a glocal vision--our church as a base for the world? With our micro-churches, I know it's going to take some time--we're still peeling back the layers of our old structure--but that's no excuse. We still need to do it. You said a lot in the book about adopting a people group in the world, which is an awesome concept. Can you share a little on how a church can do that practically beyond throwing money at it?
-----
May 23, 2008 at 06:37 AM
I"m glad you asked that. I believe a micro-church is far more reproduceable than any kind, especially global. Of all the churches that should engage - it should be that one because not only are you able to engage society you a transferable way of doing church globally.
DO NOT MAKE MONEY YOUR PRIORITY AS YOU BEGIN TO ENGAGE. First, see what jobs the people have in your group. Second, decide as a group what one project at first you can all come around. Third, as you do that together each person should see what they can do individually with their job or passion. Fourth, go slow and expand.
PICK A SINGLE PLACE GLOBALLY AND FOCUS THERE - you can email me at northwoodchurch.org - we can help you engage any place in the world where you want to serve BUT, you have to make a long-term commitment and be action oriented. I leave for Kenya next week and will try to blog, but not sure I'll be able to - I'll be back in June - so email me after that.
May 23, 2008 at 08:33 AM
Are you hinting at something....=)...Vietnam...Dominican Republic...ahhhh! We've got the desire, the vision, the connections (YOU=) and EVEN the money....the question is "WHERE DO WE START"? Help. My issue is that i want to make a difference somewhere. I want to commit long term, but don't want to waste kingdom resources to "Just Go somewhere" so i can say i'm globally minded...ya know? Any input/advice?
May 23, 2008 at 09:35 AM
About three years ago, after returning from a trip to Ethiopia, I met individually with pastors of about a dozen churches, ranging in age from months to decades. Some observations: the older churches that were active in missions tended to have very little focus; their "activity" was primarily through prayer and financial support for missionaries, and the first message they communicated regarding their missions involvement tended to be the number of missionaries they supported and/or some reflection of the dollars or percent of budget they spend. My own experience in such churches suggests that missions is a passion for a small core of members, but the congregation as a whole has very little personal involvement.
The brand-new church plants tended to be, as Bob said, focused on ministering in their own community first. At least two planting pastors came right out and said that they didn't want to diffuse their community focus with some global initiative; i.e., "not now...". (At least they were honest.)
Then there were what you might call the "adolescent" or "young adult" churches - typically between about 7 and 15 years old. These reflected their genetics; i.e., those planted with a community focus were either content with that or were now trying shift to a more global involvement. One associate pastor confided in me that the church he served, having largely accomplished the [community] purpose for which it was started, was now trying to figure out what to do next, "and [the pastor] feels that missions has something to do with that." (My gut reaction was, "well, duh!")
I share this to illustrate the incredible importance of what Bob has said - start early, engage your people, and keep focused. "Magnify Your Vision for the Small Church", by John Rowell, is a very helpful book that illustrates how one church did this. Flood Church in San Diego (http://www.floodsandiego.com) is a currently example of a young church doing this well; you can't spend one Sunday at Flood and not know of their passion for and engagement in Malawi...right down to the children's ministry.
May 23, 2008 at 10:25 AM
Aaron Snow,
Here's one suggestion I'm thinking of taking up with our churches--that we pray that God somehow leads us to where we're supposed to start globally. One way of finding the place (or the people) that I'm going to start exposing our folks to is The Joshua Project (http://www.joshuaproject.net), which works to identify the most unreached people groups of the world. A ton of info on that site.
May 23, 2008 at 07:34 PM
Vision, Vision, Vision.
Can you see your church radically, sacrificially investing itself into a UPG? When you think of it, does it make your stomach become filled with butterflies? When you have that picture in your mind, does your pulse quicken any?
Now, communicate it. You're a word-smith, write out what that picture looks like. Let your people see your heart, and I bet they either 1) probably already have a similar heart beat as yours, or 2) will catch it like a cold at daycare.
At least, that is what I've experienced in response to some things in my own church.
Be Well,
Tim
May 23, 2008 at 09:10 PM
Bob,
Since you and I talked last, the Lord has opened the door for global impact in The Philippines. He basically placed a small town—Santa—in Ilocos Sur (a northern province) in our laps. I took two men with me to explore the opportunities, and while exploring, 17 people gave their lives to Christ. We met with Baptist leaders in Manila and are presently forging a CPM partnership with them in Santa. We have already begun financially supplementing follow-up trips to Santa to disciple new believers and equip leaders for house churches. The partnership will be between Maui County Baptist Association and the Luzon Convention of Southern Baptists. We have begun work on two projects in Santa: helping the mayor there develop a children's library and resourcing a medical clinic in the fall.
Thank you for your presence and participation in our Equipping Conference in Hawaii last summer. I believe the Lord used you to inspire glocalization among Hawaii Baptists.
Aloha ke Akua,
David
May 23, 2008 at 09:14 PM
Joshua Project is a great place to start. Another is the newspaper - one that has a half-decent world section, that is. What part of the world gets your blood pumping? Is there some country that your mind and/or heart has gone back to for different reasons over the years? (For me, it's Africa - probably starting with a report on the Maasai that I did in 9th grade.) Where do the hearts of the people in your church community go out to? Is there a particular ethnic population in your area that you could get involved with, like Sudanese or Rwandan refugees? What needs more naturally come into focus in your mind (e.g., AIDS, clean water, human trafficking, war, natural disaster, etc.)? What kinds of jobs do people in your church do? Is there a concentration of people in a particular field that could be used specifically to serve a need in a certain area?
Ask questions like these; get a group of people together regular to pray over a map of the world. Ask God to point you in a particular direction. Pastor and businessman - get a group of 4-6 leaders/influencers together, buy plane tickets, and go visit the place God lays on your hearts. Find out who's working there, who to talk with, and make arrangements to spend some time with them to listen and learn and pray.
May 31, 2008 at 02:30 PM
Amen.
Jun 2, 2008 at 08:01 AM
In response to Aaron Snow, what Randy Ehle sez is right on point. Vince Antonucci and Forefront church which I am part of, did a lot of what Randy mentions in his response. We ended up adopting a people group in Laos, and eventually hooked up with Bob and found a group of that People group in Vietnam and China too. God will take this effort and do some wild and crazy things if you approach this effort with a prayerful heart and a sense of urgency that goes along with a covenant between God, you, your peeps, and the people group you adopt.
In 2001 we had a service in which we built an altar using single rocks given to each person as they entered the service that day, and we had a cylindrical wire cage in which all the rocks were dropped and the entire service was dedicated to the covenant we were making for that particular group. It was a powerful service and it has been a crazy trip since then. Drop Vince a line and he can fill you in on more. Hope that helps!
IHL,
Richie
Jun 2, 2008 at 08:03 AM
Bob,
I do have a question. What if you want to adopt a particular issue versus and particular people group. However, the issue is targeting pretty much a specific area of the world. In my case, Orphans of Aids and mainly in Africa? What are you thoughts? Just take one country on the continent and work from there?
IHL,
Richie
Leave a Reply