I’ve recently read three books that I feel would be worth your time as well and wanted to share those here.  The first, on preaching, is Preaching the Cross, which comes out of the Together for The Gospel movement.  Dever, Duncan, Mahaney, and Mohler combine with John MacArthur, John Piper, and R.C. Sproul to bring this fantastic little book on the preaching and its central theme, the cross.  Piper’s chapter on preaching as expository exultation phenomenal and is alone worth the price of the book.  This book is well worth your time as a preacher to help you improve the God-given craft that you are entrusted with.

Next, I would recommend a little book on re-planting a church entitled Church Planting is for Wimps by Mike McKinley.  McKinley took on the daunting task of pastoring a dead church with the mission of seeing it revitalized as a gospel witness in its community.  His little book chronicles his journey through Capitol Hill Baptist Church to Guilford Baptist Church and the work that God has done along the way.  This book should serve as a great encouragement to pastors who are struggling in difficult churches.

Finally, in the realm of aplogetics, I would recommend to you, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, by Craig Blomberg.  Certainly, this book drags a little in some places, but the information contained within its pages will serve as a fantastic reference resource on the shelf of any pastor or lay person concerned with defending the reliability, not only of the gospels, but of all of God’s word.

Tim Keller has posted an interesting article on his blog entitled, The Country Parson. In this article, Keller, the ardent advocate of urban church planting lauds the small country church as a training ground for young pastors. Keller is probably the last person you would ever expect to encourage pastors to live out their years in small country churches, yet his advice is both wise and timely for pastors struggling in small churches and for church planters and young pastors looking for ways to grow and cut their teeth in ministry.

Many young leaders perceive that the ideal first ministry position would be a position on the staff of a large church with an older, mature pastor to mentor them.  The limits of this model are several. You can’t teach a younger pastor much about things they aren’t actually doing. And in a large church they aren’t a) bearing the burden of being the main leader, b) leading a board of elders, c) fund-raising and bearing the final responsibility of having enough money to do ministry, d) and doing the gamut of counseling, shepherding, teaching, preaching. In a smaller church as a solo pastor you and only you visit the elderly, do all the weddings and funerals, sit by the bedside of every dying parishioner, do all the marriage counseling, suspend and excommunicate, work with musicians, craft and lead worship, speak at every men’s retreat, women’s retreat, and youth retreat, write all the Bible studies and often Sunday School curriculum, train all the small group leaders, speak at the nursing home, work with your diaconate as they try to help families out of poverty, evangelize and welcome new visitors to the church, train volunteers to do some (but not all) of all of the above tasks, and deal with the once-a-month relational or financial crisis in the church.  No amount of mentoring can teach you what you learn from doing all those things. 

Wow, how’s that for some personal advice. I remember my pastor telling me when I left my last ministry setting as an associate pastor to become the pastor of Malvern Hill that he thought I was as ready as I could be, but that there were certain things that could only be experienced as a pastor, not taught (Thanks, Rufus, you were right). 

My only critique of Keller’s statement is a reminder to pastors that a small country church (or a medium sized church, or a large church) should never be seen merely as a stepping stone for a pastor to grow and move on. I doubt that Keller is suggesting it should be, but I fear that many readers and eager young pastors will read Keller’s advice and will seek out a small church who is willing to take a chance on them only to use the church as a resume builder. Gospel ministry is much less about what you can get out of it than it is about what you can give to others for the glory of God.

The church of Christ, no matter its size or location, needs pastors who will love God and the gospel and the people of God and the people who need God. Falling in love with a small country church and serving that church with all of the gifts and abilities God has given you will prepare you to fall in love with other communities and other settings and to give the same things in those settings. Ultimately, your task as a pastor is not to prepare yourself to move on, so much as to prepare the people under your care to move on. It is not God’s plan to put every able pastor in urban mega-churches and uber hip mega-church plants. Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, Adoniram Judson, and William Carey may be known in Christian History, but they never pastored large congregations in urban areas. Instead, they gave their lives in service to their God and used the incredible gifts God had given them to glorify God and to reach the nations, not to prepare for their next big thing in ministry.

May God give us all the passion and desire of John the Baptist, that we might decrease and he increase. Be willing not only to pastor a small country church for a while, but to stay there and have an impact for the kingdom there if that is the place where God has called you to serve. No matter what you may think of yourself, you are not too good, talented, or big to serve God in a small place if that is the place where he has led you to be.

I laughed hard at this video clip, but it did get me to thinking about the new craze of internet worship services. I am thankful for the internet and for the opportunities to share the gospel this way, just the same way that many churches (including ours) are able to use television to share the good news. But, we should always ask questions.

With the rise of social media, many people find their entire sense of community online and some churches are cashing in on this, making it possible for people to “attend” church online and be a part of an online community. Of course, the major hang up is that with this kind of “community” there is no accountability and anonymity is prized (which leads me to wonder if it is even real community, but that is for another day). The church of Christ is to be a community of accountable believers.

We should use all the technology in the world to spread the gospel, but we should also be self-critical at the same time. We do not want to create church communities that do not meet the biblical requirements of the true church and in so doing give “attenders” (or watchers) the false sense of belonging. Television and internet worship services are great for people who cannot attend church because of a physical disability, however, for able-bodied people, TV and the Internet should be a bridge to bring them into the church, not a place to remain forever.

Is your church healthy? Most of you who will read this have heard the numbers time and time again. Eighty percent of SBC (and other evangelical denominations) churches are either plateaued or declining. My concern is that we’ve heard that number so many times that we really don’t allow it to sink in.  Recently, I attended a state-level meeting in South Carolina where we discussed the decline of the church and the need for church planting in our state.

There, we began to break the percentages and statistics into real numbers. In SC, we have about 2100 SBC churches (which makes up 2/3 of all evangelical churches in our state).  Of those, 1680 are either plateaued or declining and 634 churches baptized no one last year. That number is depressing, but even more so is the realization that only 420 SBC Churches are growing in a state with a population of 4.5 million people. Some estimates put our lost population at 3.25 million (70 %). Additionally, twenty to forty churches in SC will close their doors each year.

Again, to put that into perspective, if we place the burden of reaching the lost on the shoulders of the 420 growing churches in our state, they will each need to reach 7,738 people. In our state convention, the status quo continues to prevail, unfortunately, the statistics show us that the status quo is a failure.

Every church and every pastor claims that Kingdom Growth is their goal, however, if we take the numbers at face value, we have to admit that it doesn’t appear that their talk matches their walk. Likewise, even at the state convention level, we claim to have evangelism and missions at the fore of our efforts and yet a paltry 3% of our annual in-state budget goes to support church planting, the original Christian mission and the only hope we have of reaching the 3.25 million lost people in our state.

The rallying cry is that money doesn’t make church plants and that conventions don’t plant churches, however our budget numbers reveal where our loyalty lies. The truth, however, is that if evangelization of the lost were truly a priority, we would be willing to fund that evangelization through our state convention rather than to continue to perpetuate old ways of budgeting money. Churches need to be planted because we do not have enough to reach the population of our state, but especially when we consider the urban population.  In South Carolina it is estimated that 75% of SBC churches are located among 25% of the population. That means that 525 churches have the daunting and impossible task of ministering to 3.375 million people, an estimated 2.3 million of whom are not evangelical believers. How can we not see the urgent need for a church planting movement in our state?

We are sick and it is time that we wake up and admit it. For too long we as the South Carolina Baptist Convention (and the SBC) have feigned health while slowly decaying and dying. Yet, we continue to perpetuate unhealthy practices because it is the will of some without ever questioning whether the will of some is the will of THE ONE.

Though numbers do not tell the whole story for everything, the fact that we are not impacting our state (and nation) in a formidable way with the gospel shows that we are not doing the job that we should be doing to fulfill the Great Commission.

Re-alignments and re-organizations are not worthwhile unless there is a true revival among the people of the SCBC.  Our sacred cows must be sacrificed on the alter of the gospel and we must have heart-change that moves us toward creativity in church multiplication. Ed Stetzer’s research has shown that in our state we need to plant at least 63 churches per year if we are to continue to grow as a denomination.  We need ethnic church plants and Anglo-church plants, contemporary and traditional, and we need to plant churches with mother churches who give whole-hearted support.

For South Carolina Baptists to accomplish the goals of evangelizing our state, cooperation across age-barriers, worship-styles, and ethnic groups will be necessary. Cooperation is the best way to accomplish the Great Commission, but that cooperation must be full-bodied and not segmented and cliquish. Part of that cooperation will come only as leaders, young and old, will show up at meetings to make their voices heard. Voting by absence never brings change, it only brings stagnation.

The vote of the State Convention in 2008 did necessarily represent the majority of SC Baptist, but merely the majority of the very few people who showed up to participate in the process. Only 396 people voted for president of the convention last year. Assuming that each of those votes represents one church, less than twenty percent of SCBC churches were represented at the annual meeting of the SCBC last year. Thus, the direction of the convention has been molded by a the majority of a very small minority.

Business meetings are certainly not enjoyable, but if missional leaders in the state of South Carolina desire to see the lost of this state saved, then those leaders are going to have to make time to show up and cast a vote. As hard as it is to realize, participation in the denominational process can make a difference in accomplishing the Great Commission. However, staying home and refusing to participate while complaining about the direction of the Convention does nothing but create division and bitterness.

It may be that with involvement from more missional leaders in associational, state, and national denomination affairs, that the 80% of plateaued and declining churches could become 75% or 70%.  It may be that a revival could begin when “missional” leaders decide to take their mission even to the religious among them. It could be that renewed cooperation will result as young and old leaders come together to learn from the past and dream for the future. We cannot predict the outcome of what may happen if young and missional leaders step-up to the denominational plate, but we can predict the outcome if they don’t, and that outcome is decline, decay, and eventual death of many multitudes of churches and perhaps even a denomination.

In the Video below, you will see a crash test between a 2009 Chevy Malibu and a 1959 Chevy Bel-Air.  The head to head test was created and performed by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to highlight the advances that have been made in vehicle safety over the past fifty years.  Practical wisdom would suggest that the much heavier Bel-Air with lots more steel in the front end would dominate this head-on collision.  The video below clearly shows the Malibu as the hands down winner.

But what’s the take-away for ministry?  Many of our ministries hang on to old, heavy, outdated models because they have “stood the test of time,” or “it has always been done this way,” without ever considering upgrading your ministry style or methods. Our assumptions carry great weight, until we actually put our assumptions to the test.

I cuddled up in front of my computer screen to watch the Bel-Air dominate, but was pleasantly surprised at the end result.  I wonder how many of us would be presently surprised at the end result of ministry upgrades or changes if we were only willing to work hard and try something different.  Just imagine how great it would be if a lighter weight ministry were to replace one of your old behemoths and result in greater effectiveness, faithfulness, and results.

The Bel-Air is a classic and the Malibu will never be, but if safety is what counts most, the Malibu rules the roost.  Don’t let your “classic” ministry model hamper you from moving into a more effective ministry model.

Total Church was a freebie for me that I picked up at Advance O9.  My first reaction to the book in the first fifty pages was less than stellar. It wasn’t that I found the book bad, so much as ordinary.  The first few chapters do not stick out as anything different or “radical” as the book claims.

However, continuing to prod on (as I usually do even with books I don’t enjoy), my opinion of the book was changed in the remaining 75% of the pages.  It’s authors, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis are cofounders of The Crowded House, a church-planting initiative in the UK. In an age where church planting is the cool thing to do, Chester and Timmis propose radical changes that look at the value of small, intimate, gospel communities with accountable relationships as opposed to large, impersonal, megachurches that allow their members to hide easily and remain disconnected. This value has led them to plant house churches that encourage their members to not only attend church together, but to actually do life together.

This book gives an honest picture of what ministry looks like in our postmodern world.  I found many small issues with which I was inclined to disagree with the authors, but I was blown away at how much sense they made in the larger issues.  Total Church is an apt name because the book itself is something of a mini-theology course for the church that explores the theological implications of practices like church planting, world mission, social involvement, and apologetics.  The conclusion?  Theology is best, not when it is practiced in academia, but when it is lived out among the people of God as they interact with one another and the lost world.

Of course, the authors also give some shameless (and very good) plugs for church planting.

The implications of the Great Commission become apparent when we see how the first disciples worked out that Commission in the book of Acts. What we discover is that it meant church planting.   As the disciples when in response to the command to be witnesses to Jesus, they planted churches in Antioch (11:26), Derbe, Lystra, Iconium (14:1-26), Philippi (16:11-40), Thessalonica (17:1-9), Corinth (18:1-11), and Ephesus (19:1-10).

Total Church challenged me and it will challenge you.  Pastors and staff should read this book to be confronted with Chester’s and Timmis’ conviction that the shepherd is a leader among equals, and not in some special elite class of Christians. I heartily recommend it.  You may also be inclined to check out the free pdf study guide that has been created for this book.

Other Resources for Total Church:

• View video and audio from the Total Church Training at Mars Hill
• Read the Total Church blog series
• Get Total Church in the Re:Lit library

I think Driscoll is correct, so what does it mean to be truly missional, and can the rifts in our denomination (and even in evangelicalism) really be defined along these lines?  If so, can we right the ship of the SBC and of evangelicalism by appealing to all churches to refocus around the missional claims of the gospel?  Jurgen Moltmann is helpful here:

It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church (Jurgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit: A Contribution to Messianic Ecclesiology, London: SCM Press, 1977, 64).

In other words, the church exists because of the mission of God, not vice versa. To be missional, first and foremost, means to understand one’s place in the big scheme of God’s mission. Churches exist to fulfill the missio Dei (mission of God), not to fulfill the mission of the SBC or the mission of the local church. The local church and denomination are true to the call of God only in as much as they are committed to the mission of God over and above their own mission or comfort level. Unfortunately, many of our churches have transitioned from a gospel center to a community center. Rather than rallying around the Great Commission, we are rallying around fellowship and community. There is opposition, not to global missions so much, but to local missions such as church planting because “a new missional community might hurt my church.”

And, as go the churches, so goes the convention.  As referenced in my article last week, Is the SBC Another Example of Church Decline, churches (and denominations) in decline have a natural tendency to turn inward in isolation and protectionism instead of outward in missions.  As a convention, we must rally around a firm definition of what it means to be missional and encourage our churches to live out that vision.  A missional church does more than support the Cooperative Program and SBC causes. A missional church does more than give to mission causes and go on mission trips, a missional church serves its community grounded firmly in the word of God in culturally relevant ways (See Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson, Comeback Churches).  A missional church is devoted first and foremost to the mission of God in this world, secondly to the success of the local church, and then to their denomination. Missional church pastors think like missionaries and are looking for ways to reach their lost neighbors; not programs but gospel centered relationships. Missional churches take responsibility for sharing the gospel and for growth. When growth doesn’t happen, they ask why rather than make excuses. Missional churches have high expectations.

A missional church is a gospel centered community that is culturally relevant and is working to see the mission of God accomplished in their community and the world.

• Gospel centered means gospel centered, not program driven, but biblically driven. The sermons are grounded in the truths of God’s word and the ministries and programs of the church are scrutinized according to Scripture first.
• To be culturally relevant does not dictate a specific musical style, but instead focuses on the pragmatism necessary to reach the lost. Churches in cowboy towns should be cowboy churches and churches in NYC should be relevant to the culture of NYC while maintaining a strict adherence to biblical norms.
• Finally, working toward seeing the missio Dei accomplished simply means that the church will look to the word to see what God desires to be done, look to the culture to see what needs to be done by the people of God to bring the world in line with God’s will, and then lay aside all excuses and do the work of God, regardless of any negative affect it may have on us personally. Accomplishing the missio Dei will mean giving a voice to the lost in budget meetings and the life of the church.  Missional churches will care more about reaching the lost than about having their preferences.

Jonah: A Lesson In Missional Ministry

Jonah was forced by God to accomplish the mission of God even though it was not Jonah’s desire.  It may be that many Southern Baptists (even me?) need to take a lesson from Jonah.  God’s misison for our world is greater than our personal desires.  Even when we don’t like what we are called to do, we still have a responsibility to accomoplish the mission of God in this world because he has commanded us to do it.  Jonah took the Word of God, proclaimed it to the Ninevites in a culturally relevant way, and, inspite of his own selfish desires, became a catalyst for the accomplishment of God’s mission–the salvation of Ninevah. It will not be easy to right the ship of the SBC–or any other denomination in decline–but if it is to happen, it must come as pastors and local churches rally around a definition and lifestyle of what it means to be missional.  I do not doubt that my definition is lacking, but my hope and prayer is that it is a beginning.  Let us all pray that as we focus on the Great Commission, we will seek to be missional and not selfish.  We will seek to multiply and not divide.  We will cooperate and not isolate, and ultimately we will glorify God and his kingdom above our selfish desires to build our own kingdoms.

Though it may be a stretch to say that the SBC is a church since it is a collection of autonomous churches, it might not be so far-fetched to suggest that the current decline (plateau at best) in which we find ourself as a denomination mirrors the decline that many churches within the SBC are experiencing.  The chart at right, by Robert Dale, shows the typical growth chart of churches, but Dale does something unique by pointing out that the decline stage is often characterized by nostalgia, questioning, and polarization.  Once the ministry has peaked, and the decline begins, people desire to go back to the good ol’ days when they remember their former glory (nostalgia).  This nostalgia seems to be very characteristic of the SBC today.  We long for the days gone by when we were on top of the world, the questioning has begun, and I fear that we are on the verge of polarization unless someething changes.

Of course, the great problem is that the good old days are over.  Aubrey Malphurs, in Advanced Strategic Planning, has shown effectively that if a church is to advance beyond the plateau stage, the bell curve must be interrupted by the creation of a new S-curve which must be introduced by re-defining the vision of the church.  I am anxious for the work of the GCR Taskforce and hope that they can work to bring about the necessary redefinition in our convention.  However, one thing that is desperately needed is for the people of the SBC to buy into the neccessary vision of redefinition so that long-term viability of the SBC and the CP are possible.

Dreaming of days gone buy and attacking change will not bring about the results desired by the people of the Southern Baptist Convention.  If we long to see the Great Commission fulfilled and the waters of baptism stirred, we must redefine our vision and realign our convention with that vision.  If my theory is correct and we are following the same pattern as churches, then we must make drastic changes now to right this ship, or, as church history has shown, the decline in the SBC will not only continue, but it will do so at an increasing pace. 

Churches in decline have a tendency to turn inward into a protection and self-support mode and in so doing hasten the pace of decline as missions go undone.  In a time of economic recession and denominational decline, the tendecny is to turn CP dollars inward toward baptist preservation rather than to continue to find ways to send CP dollars out to accomplish the Great Commission.  We must resist the temptation toward self-preservation and continue to pursue the path set by Christ in the Great Commission.  A time of recession will require budget cuts, but we need to fight to see that those cuts affect us as Southern Baptists more than they affect the opportunity of the lost to hear the life-changing good news.  That means that we must fund missions regardless of what we may lose in other areas.

The SBC does not have to be finished, but it must change if it is to remain viable into the 21st Century.  I am thankful for the overwhelming support of Southern Baptists in June to put into motion a task force that will help to define a vision for the future and I hope that the same kind of majority will continue to bring support to this task force as they work and eventually bring their results.  I pray that God brings about a great mission movement from this trying time in our convention.

Last year, Ed Stetzer was interviewed about some of the research from his book Comeback Churches, which we reviewed last year. You can read that review here. Below, is a video concerning the Role of Leaders/Teamwork. Good stuff here. Also, see the rest of the interview over at Ed Stetzer’s blog.

I found this from J.D. Greear this morning and thought it was very good. Hopefully you can benefit from his insights.  Greear writes:

“In Joshua 2:8-11, ex-prostitute Rahab explains that a “fear of God” had come upon all the inhabitants of Canaan. This fact made Israel’s military exploits much easier.

For the most part, military matters are a math exercise. This amount of resources times this amount of firepower times this amount of troops equals a certain results. Of course there is great skill in knowing when and how to strike, but much of military success can be computed by math. If you don’t believe me, just ask someone who has played the game Risk.

Church growth operates, if I may speak this way, much the same way. You can predict a certain amount of growth based on resources, opportunities, and talent. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with thinking that way… God often works through quite “natural” means (i.e. “if you send out this mailer, x # of new people will come to your church), and He expects us to use our brains.

But then, God does something in Joshua that exponentially multiplies Israel’s “natural” military efforts. He sends a sense of “fear” upon the land.

That is what I am praying for my Raleigh-Durham community–that a sense of holy “fear” would grip the hearts of the people so that our efforts would be greatly multiplied, far beyond normal, natural means. This is when you can march around walls and scream “boo” and things come crashing down.

It is no coincidence, I believe, that Acts 2:42-47 says that when “a great sense of fear and awe was upon every soul” that “God added to their number daily those that were being saved.”

Father, send this sense of “fear and awe” onto my neighbors, my community, and all of Raleigh-Durham! Send it on those communities in which our people are serving in Central Asia, SE Asia, South Asia, and South Africa!”