Over the past year I have had an increasing number of conversations with pastors and church leaders about the church’s inability to “reach” their local communities. Many local churches have come to the realization that they have lost the ability to “attract” people to church programs and events. They sense that something has changed, but they are unsure about the essence of the change and what ministry adjustments might be necessary. In most cases, the leaders have no “grid” or “framework” to rethink the form and function of the church. Therefore, they lean towards a solution that ultimately involves more of the same church growth principles and programming.

I believe, as many of you that follow this blog, that a significant portion of the “solution” begins with recapturing the missionary nature of God and His church. The “framework” that is necessary is found in the best of the missional church conversation that is taking place today.

I have been studying and participating in this conversation for the past decade. Last year I completed a doctoral project that was targeted on assisting churches in the development of a missional ecclesiology. The core of the training project included three major elements.

The first piece of the training attempted to answer the question, “What is Missional Church?” During this portion of the training we examined the biblical, theological, and missiological underpinnings of the missional conversation. We also conducted a brief survey of the history of missional church, along with exploring what others were saying on the topic.

The second portion of the training focused on understanding the cultural shifts that have taken place in North America, and how those shifts have contributed to the marginalization of the church. This second element speaks to the question of “Why is the Missional Church conversation important?”

The third element of the training dealt with missional practice, or the question, “How can an existing church cultivate a more missional posture?” In this final section of the training we focused on issues surrounding community engagement and transformation, as well as how to make incremental changes in a missional direction with resources such as prayer, time, staff, facilities, and finances.

I share this brief training outline as an introduction to what I would be willing to share with other local congregations. I would like to make available a customized seminar that would focus on the series of topics mentioned above. The training could be customized to any size group that was most helpful. It could range from a two hour presentation targeted to a selected group of church leaders to a full day seminar presented to the whole congregation. You would decide the best fit for your situation and local context.

I want to make perfectly clear, that I am not trying to “make a buck” off of the missional church conversation. In fact, because I am supported by a national mission organization, the North American Mission Board, I would lead such a seminar with no required fee. I simply desire to assist churches and church leaders to better understand the missional conversation, and the significant implications it has for a local congregation.

If you have questions or would like to discuss what this might look like for your church, simply email me at brad.brisco@gmail.com

Here is an extended quote from a great book by Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr. I hope to post a review for the book in the next week.

Today’s church has posed itself a serious challenge: to live according to its missional nature rather than simply organize around mission activities. This challenge is something of an antidote to the church’s previous practice of piecing together a theology out of the two “Great Commission” verses found in Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8 rather than from the entire biblical story.

When we miss the big picture — that God is forming a people for Himself and reconciling the world to Himself — it affects our ecclesiology and reduces mission to a program or department of a church. A century ago, the German theologian Martin Kahler said that mission was “the mother of theology” in that the theologizing of the early church was necessitated by its missionary encounters with the world. Over many years, other prophetic voices have tried to call us to a more authentic theology, but we have not always listened. In 1969, missiologist Heinrich Kastin wrote: “Mission was, in the early stages, more than a mere function; it was a fundamental expression of the life of the church. The beginnings of a missionary theology are therefore also the beginnings of Christian theology as such.”

As you design, refine, or re-align, these questions about the role of mission will be some of your most important decisions. Do you believe that missions are something that the church does, or that mission is something that the church intrinsically is? Your answer to this question either limits or releases people. It helps define whether the church seeks the lost, or whether we expect the lost to seek the church. Which will it be?

– Church Turned Inside Out: A Guide For Designers, Refiners, And Re-Aligners by Linda Bergquist and Allan Karr

Most of you that follow this blog are familiar with The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch. It is certainly one of the most significant books in the present missional conversation. If you are not familiar with the book you can read a series of post I did here. I would also highly recommend the more recent The Forgotten Ways Handbook, which I wrote about briefly here.

To move the conversation beyond the written word, and to hear directly from Hirsch himself, check out the training videos created by Lance Ford at Shapevine. The training involves eight sessions, or “podules,” that include an introduction, a session on chaos theory, and a session on each of the six mDNA elements described in The Forgotten Ways. The eight session training is priced at $39.95, however Shapevine is currently running a special which includes the same online training in a DVD format. In other words, you can get instant access to the online training while having the DVDs shipped in the next couple of weeks.

For those of you in the Kansas City area, keep a watch out for the development of some local learning cohort groups as we work through this excellent training together.

For several months now I have been meaning to highlight two fantastic tools for missional living. I have purchased more than twenty copies of each of these “handbooks” to give to those I know are on the journey of developing misisonal churches.

The first is The Tangible Kingdom Primer written by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. The primer was written with two specific purposes in mind. First, to be a spiritual formation tool to prepare the hearts of people for mission. It is written in such a way that participants can simply be a group of friends who commit to journey through an eight week spiritual formation exercise together. Second, the primer is to be a field guide for starting mission activity together. In other words, it is also a great fit for those who are already inclined to jump in on practices that can engage and impact a local context.

The workbook is divided into seven days of experiences each week. The weekly rhythm looks like this: Day one involves the exploration of the missional/incarnational concept; Day two presents scripture for meditation on the highlighted topic or issue; Day three pushes for a bit of change in the way you think/act; Day four is about putting thoughts into action; Day five pushes the activity towards a faith community for encouragement and discernment; Day six involves ”calibration” whereby the theme of the week is examined from a different angle; Day seven is a day of rest or sabbath.

The second resource is The Forgotten Ways Handbook by Alan Hirsch and Darryn Altclass. The book is a practical oriented companion to Hirsch’s excellent 2007 book The Forgotten Ways: Reactivating the Missional Church.  By the way, if you are not familiar with The Forgotten Ways, I blogged through much of the book here.

The handbook moves beyond the theological foundation laid in the original The Forgotten Ways, to a place of practice that very few resources provide. This extremely practical handbook includes helpful tools including summary sections encapsulating the ideas contained in each chapter of the original book, suggested habits and practices to help readers embed missional principles, and adult learning-based techniques and examples from other churches that enable readers to process and assimilate the ideas in a group context.

If you are planting a misisonal community or attempting to transition an existing church in a more missional direction I would highly recommend both of these resources. By the way, both Halter and Hirsch will be speaking at Verge in February.

One last reminder for the Verge conference next month in Austin. You will save a couple of bucks if you register today.  I am very excited about the networking opportunities, not to mention the lineup of presenters, including Ed Stetzer, Francis Chan, Alan Hirsch, Neil Cole, George Patterson and Hugh Halter, just to name a few. For complete schedule and registration information go here.

Ed Stetzer shares 10 reasons to partner in church planting sooner rather than later.

Some very practical advice from Jonathan Dodson on doing everyday things with Gospel intentionality

Andrew Jones on Wolfgang Simson and the emerging house church movement.

As churches attempt a move in a more missional direction one of the major issues involves rethinking church “measurables” or “scorecards.” David Fitch offers several good ideas on this topic in chapter one of The Great Giveaway. He contends that there is still a need to measure, but the things we “count” will be very different. When speaking on my favorite measurable Fitch writes:

Let us also turn from measuring the size of buildings to the number of new churches planted. Let us count the number of local congregations each church has formed outside itself instead of the attendance figures on Sunday morning or the increased size of the worship facility. We must ask, Why is it that pastors of large churches are more willing to build bigger buildings than empower a group of forty to fifty people to plant another living body of Christ? If indeed the facts are true that the greatest conversion growth occurs in churches when they grow from fifty to two hundred people, why is it that we insist on building bigger churches after they reached one thousand?

What does it say about our assumptions for church growth when we plant churches that already start with two hundred people? Does it say that a church is not really a “successful” church until it reaches a thousand? But if we accept our new conditions in a post-Christian culture, pastoral success and the success of a church will not be measured by simple numbers alone, but by church plants, the spurring on of missional congregations that can display a witness visibly to the new life in Christ before a watching and lost world.

If what we have said above is true, evangelicals should seek a vision of the world that is populated with local bodies of Christ, not megachurch centers. Instead of huge religious arenas for private individuals to come eat, shop, and see a religious production, let us evangelicals pursue a world where one can no sooner go to a Starbucks, a Cineplex movie theater, or a local tavern without also being confronted with an alternative center for life, a life centered under the lordship of Christ, the visible local body of Christ. If this is what it means to be a physical body of Christ in North America, then the ultimate sign of church success will be “the number of churches you have planted,” not how big your church is in terms of attendance, decisions, or church facilities.

Today I had the privilege to participate in a conference led by David Fitch. The combination of being a member of academia along with being a church planter gives Fitch an excellent perspective on doing ministry in a Post-Christendom context. One of the many helpful discussions today revolved around the importance of both presence and proximity in the ministry of the missional church. The discussion reminded me of this quote from Nouwen:

More and more, the desire grows in me simply to walk around, greet people, enter their homes, sit on their doorsteps, play ball, throw water, and be known as someone who wants to live with them. It is a privilege to have the time to practice this simple ministry of presence. Still, it is not as simple as it seems. My own desire to be useful, to do something significant, or to be part of some impressive project is so strong that soon my time is taken up by meetings, conferences, study groups, and workshops that prevent me from walking the streets. It is difficult not to have plans, not to organize people around an urgent cause, and not to feel that you are working directly for social progress. But I wonder more and more if the first thing shouldn’t be to know people by name, to eat and drink with them, to listen to their stories and tell your own, and to let them know with words, handshakes, and hugs that you do not simply like them, but truly love them.

-  Henri Nouwen

Stetzer & Fitch – a missional conversation – Part III from Bill Kinnon on Vimeo.

I know a couple of these links have been out there for a while but if you haven’t seen these be sure to check out the following.

Outstanding post from last month by David Fitch on moving from “the bridge” to “the onramp.” Today’s post by Fitch on Missional Discipleship is also well worth reading. Also I am looking forward to Fitch coming to Kansas City next month.

Tony Stiff and Reading the Bible Missionally. You can also follow a conversation about Tony’s thoughts at JR Woodward’s blog here and here.

Another great analysis by Ed Stetzer in Five Reasons Missional Churches Don’t Do Global Missions And How to Fix It.

Neil Cole and Church 3.0

Organized For Mission and Four P’s For Church Planting at Next Reformation.

Jonathan Dodson and Is Your Mission Driven by Prayer?

On Reaching a City.

Missional Small Communities from Ed Stetzer on Vimeo.

Mark your calendars for an event coming up this November in Kansas City. Along with the North American Mission Board we will be hosting a Regional Missional Network Gathering on November 10-11, 2009.

The conference will begin on Tuesday, November 10 at 1:00pm and conclude on Wednesday, November 11 at 3:30pm. We will have two primary presenters, Eric Swanson and Jonathan Dodson. I think many of you are familiar with one or both of these guys, but if you are not you should be!

Not only will they both be presenting, but we will have plenty of time for Q&A and dialog. In the next few days I will post a detailed schedule and lodging information, until then if you have questions send me an email or ask via comments. In the meantime here is some info on Eric and Jonathan.

Eric Swanson works with Leadership Network as Leadership Community Director for Externally Focused Churches working with dozens of externally focused churches around North America. He is also co-founder of Good Cities, a global movement focused on kingdom transformation. Eric served with Campus Crusade for Christ for twenty-five years before joining the staff of Leadership Network. He holds D.Min. degree in Transformational Leadership in the Global City from Bakke Graduate University and is co-author of The Externally Focused Church, Living a Life on Loan, and the soon-to-be-published To Transform a City. Eric has been married to Liz for over 30 years, have three children, two grandchildren and reside outside of Boulder Colorado.

Jonathan Dodson is happy husband to Robie, and proud father of Owen and Ellie. He is the lead pastor of Austin City Life church and Directional Leader for PlantR, an Austin-based church planting network. He also serves on the board for Acts 29 Texas Region, providing church planting coaching and direction, and is active in teaching and training overseas. Jonathan holds a B.A. in Anthropology and M.Div and Th.M degrees in Theology from Gordon-Conwell, and is author of Fight Clubs: Gospel-centered Discipleship, and has published articles in various journals and webzines such as The Journal of Biblical Counseling, Boundless, and The Resurgence. Be sure to check out Jonathan’s blogs at Creation Project and Church Planting Novice.

I was aware that John Smulo has been providing website design and support for some time, however just this week I took at look at his Purple Cow Websites page for the first time. I was impressed, not only with the quality of the product John provides but also with his desire to work with church planters. If you are starting something new or know your church website is in need of a new look (and you know it is!), be sure to give John a shout out. 

Stuart Murray’s “Church Planting: Laying Foundations” is one of the finest books written on the topic of church planting. While the vast majority of books on church planting focus on the “how,” Murray offers a very welcome emphasis on both the theological and historical framework for church planting.

When discussing the theological foundation for church planting Murray argues that all church planters operate within some theological framework, but most often these frameworks “are assumed rather than articulated and adopted uncritically rather than as the result of reflection.” He also states that while inadequate theological reflection will not necessarily hinder short term growth, it will limit the long term impact of church planting and may result in “dangerous distortions in the way in which the mission of the church is understood.” He writes:

Church planting is not an end in itself, but one aspect of the mission of God in which churches are privileged to participate. We can understand the scope and implications of this mission, and the place of church planting within it, in relation to three important theological concepts.

Murray then elaborates on the topics of missio Dei, incarnation, and the Kingdom of God. In regards to the concept of missio Dei  he shares these thoughts:

Missiologists have increasingly been drawn to this phrase to express the conviction that mission is not the invention, responsibility, or program of human beings, but flows from the character and purposes of God. Historically, the term mission  was first used by theologians to refer to the acts of God, rather than the activities of the churches.

God is the Missionary, who sent his Son and sends his Spirit into the world, and whose missionary purposes are cosmic in scope, concerned with the restoration of all things, the establishment of shalom, the renewal of creation, and the coming of the kingdom of God, as well as the redemption of fallen humanity and the building of the church. Mission has a trinitarian basis and is theocentric rather than anthropocentric. Mission is defined, directed, energized, and accomplished by God.

For church planting this has considerable significance. First, the inevitable interest in internal church structures which characterizes church planting initiatives, as plans are developed for the formation of a new congregation, must not subvert the primary focus on the mission to which this new church is being called. Missio Dei  is toward the world rather than the church. Robert Warren writes: “A church effectively engaged in mission will see that participating in the missio Dei  will involve shifting emphasis from a focus on the life of the local church . . . to concern for the world in its need, joys and struggles.” 

Second, the broad scope of missio Dei  must not be reduced to evangelism or church planting. Church planting is legitimate only if set within a broader mission context. Divorced from this context, church planting may represent little more than ecclesiastical expansionism. (Can anyone say “video venues” – those are my words not Murray’s!)

Church planting can too easily embody a limited vision of mission that concentrates on one or two aspects of this mission (usually evangelism and church growth) to the neglect of other vital aspects (including working for justice and peace within society, concern for the environment, and engagement with culture).

Here is a very good article on characteristics of a church planter by Acts 29 Director, Scott Thomas. In addition to the summarized list of questions below, Scott elaborates on each point with a short, but helpful discussion.

1. Am I a Christian?
2. Am I passionately in love with Jesus?
3. Do I believe His word and does it affect my life deeply?
4. Am I Spirit-filled, Spirit-directed, Spirit-led and Spirit-controlled?
5. Am I qualified as an Elder?
6. Do I love the local church as the expression of a gospel community?
7. Am I a missionary to the city?
8. Do I have a clear vision for this new work?
9. Am I willing to pour myself out in obedience to the vision?
10. Am I healthy? Physically, emotionally, financially, relationally?
11. Am I the kind of leader many people will follow?
12. Can I preach effectively?
13. Can I guard the doctrinal door with Biblical clarity?
14. Can I architect a new work with entrepreneurial skill?
15. Am I called to plant a church at this time and in this place?
16. Have my church leaders commended me for this calling?
17. Am I a hard worker? Am I persevering?
18. Am I adaptable to new people, places and concepts?
19. Can I raise the funds needed for my family’s needs?
20. Am I humble enough to learn from others?

“Church planters under 30 whom I’m meeting don’t seem interested in planting churches that will become megachurches. Rather, they want reproducible small churches–which, incidentally, matches what’s happening in the business world.

Leadership guru Warren Bennis’ The Future of Leadership speaks of elephants and fleas: The elephants get all the attention, but the new ideas mostly come from fleas.”

– Eddie Gibbs (ht)

If you are not familiar with Jonathan Dodson’s blog Church Planting Novice then you need to be. Jonathan consistently offers up practical resources for missional church planting as he journeys through the planting of Austin City Life.

Some of my favorite in the past couple of months include:

Where to Office: Church or Home?
Why Evangelism Methods Must Change
Church Planting Manuals Reviewed
Tools For Missional Church
And today’s post: Church Planting Landmines