Two New Podcast Interviews are Online – Tim Brown and Brian Broderson

I love that I get to interview pastors about church planting, leadership, pastoring, and culture.

The podcast has 2 new interviews on it.

Pastor Tim Brown and Pastor Brian Broderson.

Both were great interviews!

God bless

New Podcast – Interview with ‘Replanter’ Danny Braga of Tap Root Church, Seattle, WA

Just finished uploading another interview.  Pastor Danny Braga has been ‘replanting’ Tap Root Church outside of Seattle, WA for the last 2 years.  We had a great time talking.

You can find it online via iTunes – Search for Perspectives in 21st Century Church Planting

or at www.reasontorejoice.org/churchplanting

God bless you

Interview with Pastor Bill Holdridge – Perspectives in 21st Century Church Planting

Just linked to another great interview.  Doing these podcasts are soo much fun.  Bill is a seasoned pastor and pastor of pastors.

Go to iTunes and search for Perspectives in 21st Century Church Planting or  click http://www.reasontorejoice.org/churchplanting.php

God bless

Perspectives in Church Planting Podcast Interview with Pastor Jeff Jackson

Hey everyone-

I just uploaded a totally off the hook interview with Pastor Jeff Jackson onto the Perspectives in 21st Century Church Planting podcast.  Jeff has founded 3 churches (1 internationally in the Philippines and 2 in the states) as well as Shepherd’s Staff Missions Facilitators.

If all the podcasts go like this one, I’m going to be overjoyed.  Just deep, rich insights into Church Planting from a very intelligent man.

If you haven’t subscribed to the podcast yet, you need to.

New Podcast on iTunes – Perspectives in 21st Century Church Planting

I’m very excited to announce a new podcast that is up on iTunes.

Perspectives on 21st Century Church Planting

It will have messages as well as interviews and discussions with church leaders about all things church planting, pastoring, and leadership.  I’m very excited.  I’ve only just begun to get it going but I’ve already had commitments from many pastors and planters who want to be part of it.  I’ll be the facilitator of the discussion.  It is an extention of both the Calvary Church Planting Network and Reason to Rejoice Media.

So why not go to iTunes and subscribe to Perspectives on 21st Century Church Planting!

The Church Planting Itch – A Personal Reflection by Daniel Fusco

 (Note: This post was originally posted on my personal blogsite, danielfusco.wordpress.com.  Since it deals with church planting, I thought it wise to post it here as well)

I’ve been back in Marin for a total of three days since the Pastor’s Conference and in some ways it feels like three decades.  It’s weird how that can be.

So I went to the conference with lots of questions and wonderings before the Lord.  It seemed as if the conference came at a great time for me.  I felt as if I was at a crossroads personally, as well as ministerially, and I needed time away to really think and pray through the implications of it all.

Within a few days of being away, I felt as if the Lord had answered almost all of my questions.  I’m going to sit here and try and write them all out.  I think it will be both healthy for me to see them in print, as well as possibly edifying for others in some way.   This will be written in distinct parts as for it to be a readable length.

The Church Planting Itch

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a church planter.  When the discussion moves to church planting, I get all amped up inside.   I love grinding out the launch of a new church.  I love when there is nothing and then something starts.  Twice in the last six years I have gotten to experience the highs and lows of church planting.  My entire Christian life has been a whirlwind and when things start to settle down into a more consistent routine, I start getting antsy.

I left for the conference finding that I had become very antsy about stepping out and planting another church.  As Calvary North Bay has matured, I find that the needs there are different than what they once were.  My role has become more managerial in many ways.  The emphasis moves from pioneering to quality control.   And I don’t love the change.  I find that my personality is better suited to pioneering.  As things become more routine, I begin to feel like a caged animal.  That is what I’ve been feeling for some time now.  I have often wondered if it is a personality flaw or a Divine calling. It’s probably both, depending on if it’s functioning in the flesh or in the Spirit.

Recently I had begun to romanticize stepping out again to plant another church.  But the problem was this, “Where can I go that is tougher than where I am right now?”  I planted in New Brunswick, New Jersey and that was a distinct challenge.  Urban, college town, highly liberal, almost no contemporary BiblicaL church in the city.  It was hard and fun and God blessed the work as He molded me and broke me in.  Then off to Mill Valley, which is a few short miles outside of San Francisco in Marin County.  I know that everywhere is a challenge when you are ministering the Gospel.  But this place is, well, completely out of control.  Spiritually oppressive, excessively liberal and wealthy, extremely well educated, and Post Post Modern.  The Lord has mightily blessed the work here (by Southern Marin/SF standards at least).  But still I’ve been wondering if at this point, my giftings were better suited to see someone else navigate this new season at CNB, much like Pastor Jason Falzarano is doing in New Brunswick.

But then it hit me.  There is no tougher place in the States to go.  I’m standing in the hardest soil in the continental US.  It’s exciting to have the Lord renew His vision in your heart.  I am right where He wants me to be!  An Apostle to the Excessively Liberal!

But then the question comes: Well what do I do now?

The Lord has ministered to me in three areas for this new season in ministry here.

1) Plant 10 churches in 10 years in Marin County and San Francisco

The Bay Area is very tribal.  People are community centric.  We feel that it will be more strategic to have 10 churches of 50 people (each in a different community) than to have 1 church of 500.  We’ve targeted the Marina Area of San Francisco (just over the Golden Gate Bridge) and Northern San Rafael as the first two places.  How this will take shape in the coming months I do not yet know.  But one idea is for me to be the planting pastor (of at least one of the new churches) and see the church grown up to about 50 or 75 people and then turn the ministry over to another pastor.  This way I can still minister to the body in Mill Valley (which will be a sending station) and leverage my church planting passion to see churches multiplied in the Bay Area.  Please keep it in prayer for me.

2) The Calvary Church Planting Network

The conference showed me the necessity and the efficacy of the Church Planting Network.  I met many pastors who have been utilizing the resources and wanting to be further involved.  I got a chance to minister to many men about the young churches that they are pastoring, planting, and hoping to plant.  I received many requests for articles on specific topics (as well as some requests to finish article series that I had yet to complete).  Many folks were wanting to partner with us in the work of blessing and assisting church planters who are on (or heading to) the field.  So in the coming 6 or 8 weeks, I am hoping to completely overhaul the church planting site.  Lots of new articles and resources are on the way.  There has also been much discussion about a Church Planting Conference of some sort.  I’d love to see this happen.

3) The Establishment of a Church Planting Internship

As I flew home from the conference, I was reflecting on a conversation that I had with my pastor, John Henry Corcoran, over lunch.  He was encouraging me to make sure that I am actively raising up church planters personally and not just through technological mediums (phone, email, websites, etc.).  I already have a pretty thick schedule of guys who I am pouring into.  But then it dawned on me, the way to ensure that we can see 10 churches planted in 10 years here in the Bay Area (as well as seeing church planters being well equipped) is to come up with an intensive training for potential church planters that we can run here in Mill Valley.  As I began to write on the plane, a one year intensive came flooding out of me.  We’d like to begin with 2 men who feel called to plant churches and have had that calling and gifting confirmed by their pastors and peers.  We’d have them come to Mill Valley and commit to a one year program that consists of numerous training modules (preaching, administration/legal, leadership development, outreach, church planting 101, etc), discipleship, and hands on ministry experience in a younger church.  The goal would be at the end of year, the planter will have learned and created everything needed try and launch a church (including have all legal, structural, technological, and vision casting elements done).  At the end of the year, those who not only completed the program but also showed that the Lord had called and equipped them by excelling would be sent out by us.  We’re also hoping that this intensive can be something that is reproducible in other churches that have a similar church planting vision.  This is all in its infancy stages but once the juices get flowing, there is no stopping it.

Perspectives in Church Planting #3 – Outreach

Perspectives on Church Planting – Outreach

By Daniel Fusco

 

At the time of this writing (March 2009), it has been about a year and a half since I began the Calvary Church Planting Network.  I began the ministry as a resource to church planters.  I saw the need for the ministry based on my personal experiences as a young church planter.  Having planted two churches in the past six years, one on each coast, both in decidedly anti Christian areas, I began to see that there was a need to fill in an educational and relational gap for church planters.  Having grown up in a ministry context that was simply ‘see a need, meet a need’, I took it upon myself to begin to compile resources, write articles, and put up a website and blog to have information on the web for church planters.  Now a year and a half later, I am even more convinced of the necessity of this ministry.  Since we began, I have corresponded with literally hundreds of church planters (via email, telephone, and sometimes in person) and potential church planters who have contacted me through the website..  I find it a great privilege to be able to encourage, pray, and be involved in these men’s lives.  These men have picked up their lives and families and heeded the call to see new transformational Christian communities established.  Oftentimes they are working full time to keep their families going while trying to see a church get going (which easily translates into 70+ hour work weeks) all the while being many miles away from their personal support base.  Over these last 18 months or so, in talking to men from all over the place, I’ve found that certain themes have emerged as major areas of discussion.  My hope is that over the next month or so, to write a series of articles called Perspectives on Church Planting.  Some of the major themes of discussions that I’ve had with church planters, and have pondered/experienced myself, are understanding your context, the necessity of being ‘called’, how to deal with church attendance, understanding your context, actually doing outreach with a small church, the need for pastoral fellowship, and the need for delegation, casting vision, and leader development.  I’m hoping to write articles on these topics individually, as well as anything else that seems pertinent. 

 

So for our third installment of these Perspectives on Church Planting, let’s take a look at ‘Outreach’.

 

The critical mistake that many church planters make is that they think that God’s calling on their lives equals a ‘successful’ plant.  Planters think that since God is calling them to an area that they will simply show up, put up a sign, and people will flock into the building because they are ready to teach the Bible.  Oftentimes people get the false impression that if you simply teach the Word, people will flock into a new church.  This may be true if you are planting a church in the middle of a full on revival, but in reality, in 2009, there aren’t too many place in the United States that are in the middle of a full on revival.  Effective church planters need to do outreach to meet people so that they can come to the building to hear that Word of God.  This was brought into focus for me when I was speaking to one of the older pastors in the Calvary Chapel movement.  This pastor was there in the beginning of the Jesus Movement.  He told me that not only was the Pastor Chuck Smith’s teaching anointed, but there was also a ton of outreach going on.  There were concerts and Christian communes.  There were outreach studies going on in schools, homes, and by the side of the road.  Greg Laurie was inventing new cartoon tracks and they were being handed out.  Teaching tapes were being given out.  There were people, outside of the church building, meeting people with the intention of communicating the Gospel to them.  A successful church plant is one that is reaching out to their community.  When the people who are reached come to the church, then they will get the opportunity to hear God’s inspired Word.

 

I’ve already written an article entitled, “Wisdom from Mark Driscoll” where I exegete a simple statement that he wrote in one of his books.  In speaking of outreach, he asked three simple questions: Who are you reaching out with?  Who are you reaching out to?  And how are you reaching out?  Feel free to read that article to see the finer points of these questions.  But to begin our discussion, these questions are important.  Who are you reaching out with?  Is it just you?  Do you have a small team?  A large group?  The answer to this question will affect the scope of our outreach.  Who are you reaching out to?  Depending on whom we are trying to reach, this will color the style of outreach.  In the Jesus Movement, Christian concerts worked well, but might not in every context.  This speaks to the need for cultural exegesis and understanding our target communities.  This is where statistics and demographics can be incredibly helpful.  Do we love the community that we are called to as Jesus does in such a way as to understand them?  Finally, how are you reaching out?  This is the culmination of the first two questions.  When we understand who we are reaching out with and who we are reaching out to, then we can formulate an action plan as to how we are going to reach out.  It is this third section that I want to spend some time on.

 

Have A Plan

 

It is simply wisdom to have a goal and that can be executed.  If we have a plan and set some goals, we will have a better chance of accomplishing anything.  So I always recommend that church planters come up with a plan, no matter how basic it may be.  Set some goals and work towards their fulfillment.

 

Don’t be Seeker Sensitive, Be Seeker Sensible

 

I don’t know who coined this pithy phrase, but I like it.  We need to be sensible to the people that we are trying to reach and the message that we are giving out.  This is important because oftentimes our outreach ideas are not relevant to the people we are trying to reach.  We have a tendency to import an outreach strategy that we saw used in another context.  We need to be sensible.  There is nothing worse then investing time and energy into something that isn’t sensible.

 

 

The Gospel is Free; But Getting It Out is NOT Cheap

 

We need to spend money on outreach.  This may seem like a no-brainer, but it isn’t.  It seems that oftentimes we would rather spend our money on anything else other than reaching people for the Gospel.  We would rather spend money on the building a church (building) than building the church (community).  Are we more concerned with getting ourselves a salary our reaching our community?  Getting the Gospel out in our community will cost money and we should be prepared for this.  It is money well spent (as long as we are mindful of who we are trying to reach).

 

It’s The Slow Drip That Works

 

What I mean by this is simply that it’s the cumulative effect of all the outreach attempts that work.  We are apt to judge the effectiveness of an outreach based on immediate fruit.  But in a church plant, it is the entire breadth of outreach that will have the effect.  A continued outreach initiative, over time, will be effective.  So have a broad view of it.  Think about it, how many times have you heard about something before you try it?  Like a restaurant?  Oftentimes you’ll see an advertisement or two, maybe a billboard, then you’ll hear of a few people who went there and then you’ll try it.  Churches are the same way.  After someone gets used to seeing your name, if they know someone who likes it, often they will try it.

 

Put Your Name and Logo On Everything

 

This is the simplest outreach style.  I call it ‘passive outreach’.  To simply get name recognition, you want to put your logo, name, and website on everything: handbills, t-shirts, pens, everything.  If you put your branding on everything, eventually people will notice you.  As a Calvary Chapel pastor, if I am driving through a town and I see a dove, I instantly know what that means.  There is recognition of the name and symbol.  In our towns, if no one ever heard of us, there is a good chance that they are not stopping by for a visit. 

 

Maintain A Good Website (and keep your name in the Yellow Pages)

 

In the technologically obsessed United States, it is criminal not to have a strong web presence.  We are really shooting ourselves in the foot if we are not all over the web.  Simply google your community and see what comes up.  Put your name everywhere.  On every community website that you can.  The internet is here to stay and we want to be a part of it.  People still use the Yellow Pages as well.  Make sure your name is in the Yellow Pages.  Also, don’t forget that you can negotiate with the Yellow Pages salesman.  That we have in the Yellow Pages was being offered at $120 per month and we settled on $30 per month.  That’s an extra $90 for other outreach ideas.

 

Train The Congregation in Community Engagement

 

Jesus’ outreach style was to train up twelve apostles.  Jesus knew that having thirteen points of contact (Himself plus the twelve) would be more effective than it just being Himself.  As we are teaching the people the Word, we need to be constantly raising up people who are effective witnesses on their jobs, while at school, as they recreate and the like.  I am constantly downloading outreach sensibilities to the congregation as we walk through the Scriptures together.

 

Finally, The Church Will Be Passionate About What The Pastor Is Passionate About

 

Brothers, if we are not passionate about the lost, neither will the folks in our fellowship be.  Just as Jesus reproduced Himself spiritually in His disciples, so will we.  If our hearts do not burn for the lost, then we will never inspire them to care enough to share.  Brothers, do we have a passion for the souls of men?  Is it a passion that will drive us out of the safety of our offices and studies and into the places where people congregate to them won for Christ?  A church planter without an outreach passion is not a church planter.

 

 

 

Perspectives on Church Planting #2 – Dealing with the Numbers

Perspectives on Church Planting – Dealing with Numbers

By Daniel Fusco

 

At the time of this writing (March 2009), it has been about a year and a half since I began the Calvary Church Planting Network.  I began the ministry as a resource to church planters.  I saw the need for the ministry based on my personal experiences as a young church planter.  Having planted two churches in the past six years, one on each coast, both in decidedly anti Christian areas, I began to see that there was a need to fill in an educational and relational gap for church planters.  Having grown up in a ministry context that was simply ‘see a need, meet a need’, I took it upon myself to begin to compile resources, write articles, and put up a website and blog to have information on the web for church planters.  Now a year and a half later, I am even more convinced of the necessity of this ministry.  Since we began, I have corresponded with literally hundreds of church planters (via email, telephone, and sometimes in person) and potential church planters who have contacted me through the website..  I find it a great privilege to be able to encourage, pray, and be involved in these men’s lives.  These men have picked up their lives and families and heeded the call to see new transformational Christian communities established.  Oftentimes they are working full time to keep their families going while trying to see a church get going (which easily translates into 70+ hour work weeks) all the while being many miles away from their personal support base.  Over these last 18 months or so, in talking to men from all over the place, I’ve found that certain themes have emerged as major areas of discussion.  My hope is that over the next month or so, to write a series of articles called Perspectives on Church Planting.  Some of the major themes of discussions that I’ve had with church planters, and have pondered/experienced myself, are understanding your context, the necessity of being ‘called’, how to deal with church attendance, actually doing outreach with a small church, the need for pastoral fellowship, and the need for delegation, casting vision, and leader development.  I’m hoping to write articles on these topics individually, as well as anything else that seems pertinent. 

 

So for our second installment of these Perspectives on Church Planting, let’s take a look at ‘Dealing with Numbers’.

 

Everyone always says it’s not about the numbers.  Let’s be honest, it is, at least partly, about the numbers.  The reasons this is true are many.  First off, each ‘number’ is a living soul created by God for His own good pleasure.  Each person was created to worship God alone.  The more of them that are assembled together, the better.  Secondly, it’s really the only way to assess how a church plant is doing.  When you begin a church and there are only a handful of people there, you’ll know if you are being effective if you see numerical growth.  Thirdly, whatever organization you are involved with, when they want to know about the ministry you are involved in, if you don’t offer up the count, they will ask.  As a Calvary Chapel pastor, you cannot affiliate a church plant until you have a certain number of people worshipping together on a Sunday morning.  Every group or organization will want to know the numbers.  I could do this all day, but let’s move onto some more productive thoughts.

 

As a church planter, it is very easy to have your joy bound up in the number of people who come.  This isn’t only true of church planters; this is true of all ministers in every context.  Jesus speaks of this when the seventy-two returned from doing ministry and as they debriefed Jesus on what had transpired. “The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!… Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”” (Luke 10:17, 20, ESV).  Notice how Jesus reminds them that their joy and identity must not be bound up in their perceived success (or for some of us, our perceived lack of success), but solely in the completely gracious salvific work of Jesus Christ.  We must begin by asking ourselves if our joy is bound up in the numbers of people who come.  If it is, we must repent.  We cannot serve two masters brothers.

 

At this point, what I’d like to do is give some random exhortations as to how we are to deal, within our own hearts and in our conversations, with numbers.  I share these from very personal experiences.  I imagine that not all of these exhortations with apply to all of us, but some will undoubtedly apply.  In sharing these, I hope to encourage you all to learn from my misunderstandings and mischaracterizations.

 

Expect 40 people in 4 Years

 

I know, I know, that sounds horrible.  Just 40 people in 4 years?  Yes, 40 people in 4 years.  I say that you should expect that.  The reason that I encourage guys to expect this number is because 7 out of every 8 church plants fail.  There are a great many reasons why the vast majority of church plants fail but one reason is that planters have unrealistic expectations.  When a man feels called by the Lord to start a church, there tends to be an expectation that the Lord is going to blow the doors off of the place.  We all expect that when we set the sign out in front of the building that the people are just going to pour in, climbing over one another to see the work of the Lord.  But most often, especially if you are planting in the 21^st century, this doesn’t happen.  Many church plants close their doors within the first few years because there isn’t explosive growth.  The Lord has many reasons for the slow and steady growth of the church (some of which include preparing and humbling the pastor, preparing the community, lessons in faithfulness and trust, the sovereign timing of God, etc).  Not to mention that every area is different.  Some areas have a lot of Christians, but they are mostly plugged into solid churches.  Some areas have no solid churches and lots of unattached believers.  Some areas have virtually no believers.  Every area is unique and this will affect the growth possibilities.  Statistics teach that if a church has 40 people after 4 years, then they are often sustainable.  You have to remember that the 60% of churches in the United States are less then 100 people.  Add to that the fact that only 2.5% have more than a thousand attendees.   What this teaches us is that churches are a lot smaller than we tend to think.  I would encourage you to set much more lofty goals than 40 in 4 years.  But only expect that many. 

 

Don’t Forget Attendance will Ebb and Flow

 

Most church plants begin very humbly so the changes in attendance are easily observable.  Like waves crashing on the seashore, church plant attendance will come and go.  Because of this, it is very common for a church plant to have 25 people.  Then, seemingly all of a sudden, have 50 people.  Then settle back to 35 people.  Then swell to 70 people.  Only then to pull back again to 50 people.  This is very common.  If you are given to joy at growth and despair at seeming decline, this phenomenon will put you on an emotional rollercoaster.  One of the ways that the Lord has ministered to me in this process was to force myself to judge the numerical growth of the ministry on a year-by-year basis only.  I acknowledge and expect the ebb and flow of attendance, but only make final declarations on growth based on year-to-year movements.  Don’t forget that church attendance has a tendency to go down during the summer months then way up in the fall.   Depending on where you live, the winter months can be sparse due to weather conditions.   To give you an example, here at Calvary North Bay, Mill Valley, CA, which is two years old at the time of this writing, began with two families (3 adults and 3 children).  At the end of our first year, we had about 40 steady attendees.  At the end of our second year, we had about 80 regular attendees.  That is quality growth when looked at on a year-by-year basis.  But within the last year, we would have a few Sundays with 100 people and then two months later have 50 people for a few weeks.  So for sanity’s sake, don’t forget that the attendance will ebb and flow.  Try and enjoy the variations.  Also don’t forget that like a little child, the most drastic changes will be in the first number of years.  Scientists tell us that people grow more from one day to six years of age, than in any other span in their lifetime.  Church plants are the same.  Calvary North Bay doubled in size last year.  My guess is that the average mega-church did not.  But they are incalculably different and really cannot be compared. 

 

Focus on Incremental Benchmarks

 

I have found a great blessing in having an incremental perspective of church plant growth.  It’s hard to tell when a church plant can shed the ‘plant’ moniker.  Does a church plant become just a church after a certain amount of time or because of certain number of people or because of a certain sized leadership or because they own a building?  This I really don’t know.  Because of that, depending on your perspective, you can always be striving toward very aggressive goals to your own detriment.  When I was involved in the first church plant (2002 in New Brunswick, NJ), I was blessed to have a person encourage me to have an incremental perspective on the numbers.  When I started in New Jersey, I was single man and there was no core team to start the ministry with.  So my first goal was to hit the ten-person mark.  After that was attained, my next benchmark was twenty-five people.  After that it was forty people.  That same idea would then continue on and on.  This was a blessing because when you are at ten people, one hundred people seems almost unattainable and can be very disheartening to be judged against.  So set for yourself attainable incremental benchmarks.

 

Like the Apostle Paul, Learn in ALL Things to be Content

 

When a church planter tells me that there are 40 people coming, I know that there are really only 25.  If he says 75, I figure that realistically there are only 50.  The sin of exaggeration bites us all.  Mostly this happens because we have learned that people will think we are more effective if we inflate the numbers a little bit.  We need to rigorously resist this temptation.  If the Lord has blessed you with 40 people at this point in your ministry, they are His 40 and they are to be rejoiced in as such.  The Lord saw fit to entrust to you 40 of His precious little lambs!  They are His sheep and He distributes them as He sees fit.  It is not our job to exaggerate numbers to commend the praise of man.  This demeans the work of God in your midst.  Don’t feel that you need to apologize for the work that is His.  Rejoice that He lets your care for any of His own!

 

Don’t Focus on Who Is NOT There, Love the Ones Who ARE There 

 

It has been said that the church will not grow if you have a huge front door (where new people enter) and an equally huge back door (where established people leave).  If you are completely numbers driven in your self valuation, you will always be focused on what you don’t have, rather than what you do.  What good is it if 50 new people show up while the 50 that you have are on the way out the back door.   A minister is called to love and feed the sheep.  His task is to care for the sheep in his care, not to obsess about the sheep that he hoped would be there but weren’t.  Brothers, love the people that the Lord has brought to you.  Love them and labor for their joy in Christ.  If there are 5 people there, proclaim the glories of God in the face of Jesus Christ with the same zeal and passion as if there we 5000.  Let those people know the love of God as it flows from Him to and through you and onto them.  If you are too busy focusing on the lack of attendance, you’ll miss out on the ministry that God has given you among those who are there.

 

Finally, Don’t Ever Forget that Numerical Growth is Solely Up to the Lord

 

This might seem like a given, but it is still worth it to mention.  The Lord adds to His church those who are being saved.  No sermon or altar call ever saved a man.  People are saved by the sheer grace of God and His Spirit drawing them and working in them.  Yes, the Lord may use a sermon or an altar call as the instrument, but the instrument can take no credit.  The most amazing Stradivarius violin will not sound great if my four-year son was playing it.  But an excellent instrument in the hands of a world-class musician will make beautiful music.  The work of adding to church is God’s work.  He loves to glorify Himself in using human vessels, but that is solely His prerogative.  If you have planted a church and it grew like gangbusters, all the glory is His.  If you planted a church and it hasn’t grown, all the glory is His.

Perspectives on Church Planting #1 – Understanding Your Context

Perspectives on Church Planting – Understanding Your Context

By Daniel Fusco

 

At the time of this writing (March 2009), it has been about a year and a half since I began the Calvary Church Planting Network.  I began the ministry as a resource to church planters.  I saw the need for the ministry based on my personal experiences as a young church planter.  Having planted two churches in the past six years, one on each coast, both in decidedly anti Christian areas, I began to see that there was a need to fill in an educational and relational gap for church planters.  Having grown up in a ministry context that was simply ‘see a need, meet a need’, I took it upon myself to begin to compile resources, write articles, and put up a website and blog to have information on the web for church planters.  Now a year and a half later, I am even more convinced of the necessity of this ministry.  Since we began, I have corresponded with literally hundreds of church planters (via email, telephone, and sometimes in person) and potential church planters who have contacted me through the website..  I find it a great privilege to be able to encourage, pray, and be involved in these men’s lives.  These men have picked up their lives and families and heeded the call to see new transformational Christian communities established.  Oftentimes they are working full time to keep their families going while trying to see a church get going (which easily translates into 70+ hour work weeks) all the while being many miles away from their personal support base.  Over these last 18 months or so, in talking to men from all over the place, I’ve found that certain themes have emerged as major areas of discussion.  My hope is that over the next month or so, to write a series of articles called Perspectives on Church Planting.  Some of the major themes of discussions that I’ve had with church planters, and have pondered/experienced myself, are understanding your context, the necessity of being ‘called’, how to deal with church attendance, actually doing outreach with a small church, the need for pastoral fellowship, and the need for delegation, casting vision, and leader development.  I’m hoping to write articles on these topics individually, as well as anything else that seems pertinent. 

 

So for our first installment of these Perspectives on Church Planting, let’s take a look at ‘Understanding Your Context’.

 

When I speak with church planters, I always want to find out about the area that they are ministering.  I ask them about the community, its values, its style, the demographics, etc.  I find that oftentimes men haven’t taken the time to do any cultural exegesis.  At first, this took me aback.  But then I remembered that when I planted the church in New Brunswick, I did barely any cultural exegesis.  I was a young man with a Bible who knew that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.  I had seen the Lord change my life and I had a passion to see people experience that same change.  So I set on out, without thinking much about where I was, the uniqueness of the area, etc.  Even when we first began, although I was saying all the right things about my understanding of the community, the reality was that I didn’t really take the time to understand the average person in New Brunswick.  I didn’t love the community enough to want to really know and understand them.  The ministry suffered because of this.  Not because I didn’t teach the Word, but because I did but not in a way that anyone could understand.  It suffered because I exported the ministries that I had seen at the church that I was an Assistant Pastor at, rather than seeing my area for what it was and tailoring the ministry accordingly.  So now, we’re going to look at ways of understanding our ministry context as well as some of the pitfalls that church planters face.

 

The Most Important Thing about Contextualization

 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is unchangeable.  It is fixed.  It cannot be altered and still be honoring to God Himself.  But how we communicate these truths need to be changeable. They will change as the times do and as the culture does.  The reason that I say this is the most important thing about contextualization is that many people don’t want to contextualize the gospel because many people change the Gospel to reach a culture (this is called syncretism).  This is wrong.  But you can package the gospel in such a way as to keep people from actually being able to hear it.  Imagine if you were interested in using a new computer.  You go and talk to a ‘professional computer guy’ and he speaks to you in very technical, computer geek language.  Within a few minutes, you are completely lost and your eyes glaze over and you decide that learning about the new computer is not for you.  Is it that you weren’t really interested in learning or was it that the computer guy just shot soo far over your head that you just couldn’t get it?  I’m sure a lot of our churches are like this.  So in any discussion about contextualization needs to begin and end with the unchangeable gospel that God asks each of us to package specifically for our target audience, our community.

 

The Scriptures are Completely Contextualized

 

This was a mind-blowing realization to me.  There are four Gospels.  Each one has a different audience.  Matthew, writing to Jewish people, quotes extensively from Scripture and is constantly looking at the fulfillment of prophecy in the life of Jesus.  Mark’s Gospel has very little of this, as he was writing to a different audience.  You’ll notice in Luke’s Gospel how he is always clarifying things to explain things that the average Roman wouldn’t understand about Jewish culture.  Each of Paul’s epistles are contextualized to a specific area.  The Galatians were struggling with the Judaizers, so Paul spoke to them about the necessity of faith apart from works.  The church in Corinth was simultaneously spiritually gifted and carnal.  So Paul shared to them the unsearchable riches of Christ within their context.  Although all of this is God-breathed, it was inspirationally directed to a specific group of people.  Not only were the words and concepts inspired, but also that those words and concepts were to be directed to a specific target audience!  Jesus was incarnate into first century Judaism.  He looked and dressed as they did.  He understood how they were raised, as He was raised the same way.  He spoke their language.  If the Lord would have been incarnate say today in New York City, the Gospels would contain the same truth, but in drastically different packaging.  One of the keys to understanding your context and ministering effectively within it is to ask the simple questions (with radically important answers), “If Jesus were to be incarnate today into (insert your location here), what would His ministry look like?”  “If the Apostle Paul was doing his missionary work in (insert your location here), where and how would he do his ministry?”  Then you should ask the question, “Why aren’t I doing these things?”

 

Demographic Research Is Not Unspiritual

 

I had always thought that it was unspiritual to look at demographics.  As if using demographics somehow made your calling of God of a lesser effect.  I had heard people speak ill of Rick Warren for surveying the area that he hoped to plant in to find out about what the people’s experiences with church and their perceptions of what would be the type of church they would attend.  He found, among other things, that people wanted sermons that had real life application to it and they wanted a church that really valued their children.  I believe that God wants these things as well for His church.  Wikipedia defines demographics as ‘Demographic or demographic data refers to selected population characteristics as used in government, marketing or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research.  Commonly-used demographics include race, age, income, disabilities, mobility (in terms of travel time to work or number of vehicles available), educational attainment, home ownership, employment status, and even location. Distributions of values within a demographic variable, and across households, are both of interest, as well as trends over time.’  Demographics are simply a compendium of who lives in your area.  It was completely illuminating to read the US Census Data for Mill Valley, California where I currently serve.  The people here are 90% Caucasian.  60% of the people have a college degree and one in three people have an advanced degree.  The average per family income is more than twice the national average.  This simply teaches me that the people here are primarily Caucasian, wealthy, successful and very well educated.  This has profound implications for ministry style and approach.  Would it be wise to come into a primarily Caucasian area and harp on the need for the ministry to be multicultural?  With the education of the area that I am in, I have to make sure to anticipate the intellectual arguments of very well educated people and pepper all messages with this.  Demographics are a snapshot of the makeup of your community.  You want to know who you are trying to reach and make sure that your approach takes into account the people you are trying to reach and not just your own personal preferences.

 

We Absolutely Need to Understand the Average Person in our Community

 

Now I hate to say this but you won’t understand the average person in your community reading Bible commentaries and listening to your favorite pastors.  Don’t get me wrong, you need to study to show yourself approved and be edified.  But this will not help you understand your missiological context.  Are your neighbors reading Bible commentaries?  It is doubtful (although we wish they would).  Do your neighbors really care about what some group of Christians are doing in some place that they’ve never been that you don’t agree with?  Again, it’s doubtful.  But oftentimes, this is what pastors do.

 

I have found that in order to understand the people that you are called to minister to, there are certain things that you can do to aid yourself.

 

1) Purposefully vary your people context.

 

Make sure that you spend time with non-Christians and find out what is important to them.  It is really easy for church planters and pastors to spend all of their time with folks from within their congregation.  It is essential and a disciple to vary your people context.  Find out where they get their information from, the books they like, the movies that seem important to them and what they laugh at and why.  Talk to them about sports and politics, but not to argue with them, but to understand them.

 

2) Read their information sources.

 

Read your local newspaper if it is popular and widely read.  Read magazines that are targeting a population that is similar to your own.  Read the popular books in your area.  You can go into the local large bookstore change and ask them for their list of the most popular books that the store has sold.  It’s a good idea to buy a book or two and read it with a mind to both understand your target population and also have a point of contact to begin dialoguing with people about (like Paul’s ‘Unknown God’ reference in the Book of Acts).  I have found that magazines are easier than books as they are shorter and not as involved/time consuming.  Also, if your area is strongly of a certain political flavor, you want to really understand their worldview so listen to their pundits, even if it makes you a bit nuts.  If you want to understand whom you are trying to reach, you’re going to have to make some sacrifices.

 

3) Find the Points of Commonality

 

As you speak to people and as you digest their information, find the areas that you can agree on with the culture at large.  Most people are used to Evangelicals being completely adversarial in their approach.  It turns them off, just as it would us, if we were in their shoes.  In almost every culture, there are things that there is agreement on.  It’s important to find those points and use them as a relational bridge. 

 

4) Proximity Breeds Accountability

 

I always encourage church planters to live directly in the community that they are called to.  You want to live in the same context as they do.  People will consider you irrelevant if you are living in the suburbs and trying to plant a church in the middle of a city ghetto.  Your contexts are different and they will see that.  You want to shop where they shop, work out where they work it, have the same weather, etc.  And by all means, if you move into an area, change your cell phone number to have the same area code as everyone else, there is nothing that says ‘outsider’ more than having a cell phone number from some unheard of area code.  And on that note, get your license plates changed ASAP if you move across state lines.

 

5) Teach As If Your Communities Seekers Are There

 

If all of your messages are directed at evangelical people and are concerned with evangelical sub cultural discussions, then the only people who will be interested in them are evangelicals.  But in most of our communities, there are less and less evangelicals and more and more people who don’t go to church.  If you ever hope to reach your community, you want to make sure that you are teaching to an audience (whether you are in actuality or not) who includes those who are not yet Christian.  Don’t just invalidate the average concerns with mockery.  Those are real people’s concerns.  Teach the Scriptures and show the community God’s love from them by lovingly addressing their most common concerns and explain to them how that concern is either unfounded or way more important than they realize.  When you teach, teach as the average person in your community is there, and Lord willing, one day they will be and there will be conversions in the church.

 

6) Make Sure that You Really Love Them

 

Love is always relevant.  I often think of Jesus eating with the tax collectors and sinners.  He was nothing like them, at all.  But yet He loved them and spent copious amounts of time with them.  Even though He was distinct from them, He was there with them and no doubt, they knew that He loved them.  We need to make sure that we love the community that we are trying to reach.  We need to beg God for His heart for the people.  He loves them.  Jesus Christ died on a cross so that those who would come to Him might have life and have it more abundantly.  God give us your heart of love for our 

The Christian Minister and Financial Security by Dr. Jeff Iorg (with commentary by Daniel Fusco)

Climbing the Mountain of Financial Security

 

I recently heard this message by Dr. Jeff Iorg, who is the President of Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, in Mill Valley, CA.  Dr. Iorg’s website can be found at www.jeffiorg.com.  I was blessed by the message and thought that it would be a benefit to those reading the articles on the Calvary Church Planting Network.  Dr. Iorg graciously forwarded me the bones of the message.  I will give my own commentary in italics (all of Dr. Iorg’s material is in normal type).  I think that this message is important because many well meaning Christian ministers are just plain naïve when it comes to dealing with money.

Introduction

1.     Stock market meltdown, lost retirement savings, lost income on investments, lost confidence in our financial future has marked the past few weeks.

2.     Financial pressure creates stress in our lives. 

3.     God wants us to us money appropriately and live stress free in this area.

Dr. Iorg’s focus for the Seminary where he is the President was to prepare the students for a life in full time Christian service.  Part of that life is dealing with finances.  When this message was delivered (October 23, 2008), it was in the midst of some of the most volatile times in the New York Stock Exchange.  There is abundant discussion of a ‘global recession’.  As the Seminary students prepare to enter the ministry, having a clear vision and outline for their financial life is essential.

Body

1.      Financial security rests on affirming all we have belongs to God.

a.   God owns everything by creation.

            Gen. 1:1  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

Rev. 4:11  “Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because you have created all things, and because of your will they exist and were created.”

            b.  God owns you, and everything about you, by redemption.

                        Eph. 1:7  “In him we have redemption (purchase back) through his blood…”

                        1 Cor. 6:20  “…for you were bought with a price, therefore glorify God…”

 

This point really needs no commentary.  All of our lives are His and really all that follows here trickles down from this point.  But we must make this affirmation if we are His disciples.

2.      Financial security rests on giving more than a tenth of your money back to God.  Malachi 3:7-12

a.  The tithe (10%) is God’s basic standard of giving.

b.  The tithe (10%) assures us of God’s provision. (Mal  3:10)

c.  The tithe (10%) assures you of God’s protection. (Mal 3:11)

d.  The tithe (10%) is the base – Jesus fulfilled the Law!

Dr. Iorg made the point here that after affirming that all we have is the Lord’s, he immediately made the point that a Christian minister must not be content with just giving a tithe (10^th) but should be a cheerful giver in giving more than a tithe.  He said that he personally would not feel comfortable preaching to the body if he was not giving exceedingly.

3.      Financial security comes from making and using a spending plan – a budget.

Proverbs 20:5  “The plans of the diligent certainly lead to profit, but anyone who is reckless only becomes poor.”

a.      Make a plan to live within your means.

b.    Make a plan to live on a margin.

c.    Make a plan to live out your priorities.

d.    Work your plan!!

This is a nice, simple, and practical piece of godly advice.  Figuring out what your means on and living within it are essential to financial security.  Dr. Iorg spoke extensively on realizing that you don’t go into the ministry for the money and you have to live differently than those around you.  The Christian minister cannot expect to live like their friends who are executive.  Dr. Iorg’s counsel was to set a budget and understand that there are additional expenses that are unexpected but should be expected.  Cars break down and other things happen so budget in some savings to pay for the expected expenses that happen unexpectedly.

4.      Financial security involves investing in a get rich slow scheme.  Ex. save, invest, and wait

Proverbs 12:11  “The one who works his land will have plenty of food, but whoever chases fantasies lacks sense.”

Dr. Iorg obviously used the ‘get rich slow scheme’ in a tongue in cheek manner.  But the wisdom of this point should not be missed.  He counseled that a Christian minister should systematically save and invest money, a little bit at a time, and trust that it will grow over time (the power of compounding interest).  This is the greatest mistake many Christian ministers make financially.  They think that ‘trusting God’ means being naïve and not thinking through stewardship for the long haul.  Luke 16:1-13 contains the parable of the unjust steward.  In it, Jesus encourages us to be shrewd like the steward (just without the sin).  Now what follows is not, in any way, investment advice.  It is just something for you to think about.   Christian ministers should be wise as serpents and systematically invest in a savings account, retirement plans (even if you never plan on retiring), 529s (to help your kids with college), and other investments.  Dr. Iorg also made the point that traditionally buying a home was one of the finest investments a person could make.  Brothers listen, don’t think it’s unspiritual to plan for your financial future.  Obviously ‘a man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps’.  So be shrewd and plan your way and the Lord will direct you!

5.      Financial security is preserved when you avoid sin taxes. Ex. lottery, cigarettes, liquor, pornography, alimony, child support, greed, etc.

Proverbs 12:3  “Man cannot be made secure by wickedness…”

The final point states what billionaire Warren Buffett says ‘Never lose money’.  The Christian minister preserves his finances by not having to pay extra money for sins that he should never have committed.  If we follow Christ for our lives, there shouldn’t be certain expenditures of capital that other people have.  Godly living should keep us from sin taxes.