leadership network innovation series sampler

real

storiesinnovative

ideas

transferrable

truths

SAMPLER

Full chapters from each book in the Innovation Series

innovation series

http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/LNIS.htm

Endorsements for Confessions of a Reformission Rev:

After reading Driscoll’s Confessions, you will never go back to being

an inwardly focused church without a mission.

—Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus but not the Church

Driscoll’s Confessions is a necessary read for those who desire to take

the unchanging gospel into our ever-changing world.

—Darrin Patrick, founding pastor of The Journey

Endorsements for The Multi-site Church Revolution:

The multi-site church is not just another passing fad but a revolution-

ary remaking of the church. is a must-read.

—Robert Lewis, Pastor, Fellowship Bible Church

If you want to understand the rationale, benefits, and challenges of

multi-site, and to see some practical examples of how it works and

where it’s heading, The Multi-site Church Revolution is for you.

— Larry Osborne, Pastor, North Coast Church

Endorsements for The Big Idea:

Every ministry leader and church planter needs to read The Big Idea

—Craig Groeschel, author of It

The Big Idea is an approach to preaching that is as ancient as the

parables of Christ, but it will revolutionize the next generation of

preachers.

—Mark Batterson, Lead Pastor, National Community Church


Endorsements for Leadership from the Outside:

Kevin Harney has a heart for people in ministry. And he writes as

one who knows.

—John Ortberg, Pastor and Author, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church

If Christian leaders will prayerfully absorb Leadership From the Inside

Out, I am confident that they will emerge with a fortified soul, more

in love with their God, more aware of their own heart, more settled in

their calling, and more passionate about loving others.

— Gary Thomas, author of Authentic Faith and Sacred Pathways

Endorsements for The Monkey and the Fish:

I couldn’t put down The Monkey and the Fish until I finished it all.

Dave writes about our global and cultural context that most western

Christians are oblivious to . . . but not for long.

— Bob Roberts, author, The Multiplying Church

In The Monkey and the Fish, Dave Gibbons delivers insight that will

challenge your view of our world and the role of the local church.

— Tony Morgan, Chief Strategic Officer, The NewSpring Church

The Monkey and the Fish is an essential book for Christians and

church leaders seeking the answer for how the church should be in

the twenty-first century. Dave Gibbons brings us to a whole new level

to understand the perspective of Jesus, who is third-culture God.

— Namjung Lee, Pastor, Sarang Community Church, Seoul, Korea


Endorsements for Deliberate Simplicity:

Dave cuts through all the mess with practical ways to make church

natural, simple, & effective. Regardless of the form or stage of your

church, Deliberate Simplicity will save you time, money, and misery.

— Hugh Halter, Author of The Tangible Kingdom

Deliberate Simplicity is a valuable contribution to the move toward

lowering the bar on how church is done and raising the bar on what

it means to be a follower of Christ.

— Neil Cole, author, Organic Church

Endorsements for Servolution:

In all my years of exploring the power of leadership, I have learned

that the true expression of leadership is found in serving. I have wit-

nessed the incredible story of Dino Rizzo and Healing Place Church

and have seen the eternal impact that serving has made on so many

lives in their community and throughout the world. Servolution is a

must-read for anyone who wants to transform their life and the lives

of others simply by choosing to serve with no strings attached.

John C. Maxwell

Author, Speaker, and Founder of EQUIP

“Louisiana is a beautiful state with tremendous resources. But our

land and bounty cannot match the magnificence and generosity of

our people. I saw it first hand, when the levees broke, and the waters

rose. Dino and thousands like him took in the homeless, fed the

hungry, and served those in need. The power of love, the power of

serving, binds us together as a people and honors the truth of our

highest calling.”

Bobby Jindal

Governor of Louisiana


About the Leadership Network Innovation Series

Since 1984, Leadership Network has fostered church innovation and growth by diligently pursuing its far-reaching mission statement: To identify high-capacity Christian leaders, to connect them with other leaders, and to help them multiply their impact.

While specific techniques may vary as the church faces new oppor-tunities and challenges, Leadership Network consistently focuses on bringing together entrepreneurial leaders who are pursuing similar ministry initiatives. The resulting peer-to-peer interaction, dialogue, and collaboration — often across denominational lines — helps these leaders better refine their individual strategies and accelerate their own innovations.

To further enhance this process, Leadership Network develops and distributes highly targeted ministry tools and resources, includ-ing books, DVDs and videotapes, special reports, e-publications, and free downloads.

Launched in 2006, the Leadership Network Innovation Series presents case studies and insights from leading practitioners and pioneering churches that are successfully navigating the ever-chang-ing streams of spiritual renewal in modern society. Each book offers real stories, about real leaders, in real churches, doing real ministry. Readers gain honest and thorough analyses, transferable principles, and clear guidance on how to put proven ideas to work in their indi-vidual settings.

With the assistance of Leadership Network — and the Leadership Network Innovation Series — today’s Christian leaders are energized, equipped, inspired, and enabled to multiply their own dynamic king-dom-building initiatives. And the pace of innovative ministry is grow-ing as never before.

For additional information on the mission or activities of Leadership Network, please contact:

800-765-5323 • www.leadnet.org • [email protected]


s a m p l e r

real stories innovative ideas

transferrable truths


Tab l e o f Contents

Confessions of a Reformission Rev, by Mark Driscoll

Chapter Zero

The Multi-site Church Revolution, by Geoff Surratt,

Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird

Chapter One

The Big Idea, by Dave Ferguson, Jon Ferguson and Eric Bramlett

Chapter One

Leadership from the Inside Out, by Kevin Harney

Chapter Eight

Sticky Church, by Larry Osborne

Chapter Four

The Monkey and the Fish, by Dave Gibbons

Chapter One

Deliberate Simplicity, by Dave Browning

Introduction

Servolution, by Dino Rizzo

Chapter Two

A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip, by Geoff Surratt,

Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird

Chapter One


This is the story of the birth and growth of Seattle’s innovative Mars Hill Church, one of America’s fastest growing churches located in one of America’s toughest mission fi elds. It’s also the story of the growth of a pastor, the mistakes he’s made along the way, and God’s grace and work in spite of those mistakes.

Mark Driscoll’s emerging, missional church took a rocky road from its start in a hot, upstairs youth room with gold shag carpet to its current weekly attendance of thousands. With engaging humor, humility, and candor, Driscoll shares the failures, frustrations, and just plain messiness of trying to build a church that is faithful to the gospel of Christ in a highly post-Christian culture. In the telling, he’s not afraid to skewer some sacred cows of traditional, contemporary, and emerging churches.

Each chapter discusses not only the hard lessons learned but also the principles and practices that worked and that can inform your church’s ministry, no matter its present size. The book includes discussion questions and appendix resources.

“After reading a book like this, you can never go back to being an inwardly focused church without a mission. Even if you disagree with Mark about some of the things he says, you cannot help but be convicted to your core about what it means to have a heart for those who don’t know Jesus.”—DAN KIMBALL, author,The Emerging Church

“… will make you laugh, cry, and get mad … school you, shape you, and mold you to have the right kind of priorities to lead the church in today’s messy world.”—ROBERT WEBBER, Northern Seminary

MARK DRISCOLL is considered one of the fi fty most infl uential pastors in America. He is the founder of Mars Hill Church in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org), the Paradox Theater, and the Acts 29 Network, which has planted scores of churches. The author of The Radical Reformission, Mark speaks extensively around the country. He lives with his wife and children in Seattle.

RELIGION / Christian Church / Growth

This book is part of the Leadership Network

Innovation Series.

US $16.99/UK £9.99/CAN $21.99 ISBN-10: 0-310-27016-2ISBN-13: 978-0-310-27016-4

9 7 8 0 3 1 0 2 7 0 1 6 4

5 1 6 9 9

EA

N

Cover design: Kirk DouPonce, DogEaredDesign.comCover photo: Thomas James Hurst, The Seattle Times

http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310270164

Contents

Acknowledgments 7

Prelude 9

0. Ten Curious Questions 13

1. Jesus, Our Offering Was $137 and I Want to Use It to Buy Bullets 370 – 45 People

2. Jesus, If Anyone Else Calls My House, I May Be Seeing You Real Soon 5745 – 75 People

3. Jesus, Satan Showed Up and I Can’t Find My Cup 7375 – 150 People

4. Jesus, Could You Please Rapture the Charismaniac Lady Who Brings Her Tambourine to Church? 91150 – 350 People

5. Jesus, Why Am I Getting Fatter and Meaner? 115350 – 1,000 People

6. Jesus, Today We Voted to Take a Jackhammer to Your Big Church 1391,000 – 4,000 People

7. Jesus, We’re Loading Our Squirt Guns to Charge Hell Again 1634,000 – 10,000 People

Appendix 1 — The Junk Drawer: Answers to Common Questions 188

Appendix 2 — Distinctives of Larger Churches 195

Notes 198

0310270162_confess_rev.indd 50310270162_confess_rev.indd 5 02/03/06 11:44:08 AM02/03/06 11:44:08 AM


I was not a Christian when

I came to the church.

Today I am a pastor.



14

Ten Curious Questions

This book is about the hard lessons we have learned at Mars Hill Church in Seattle (www.marshillchurch.org). Writing this book caused me to reflect on our past and subsequently conjured up a horrendous feeling eerily similar to seeing my high school yearbook photo in which I sported a soccer-rocker mullet. Like me, most people prefer not to dwell on past moments of folly, embarrassment, or failure. But the providential hand of a gracious God commonly uses exactly such occasions to shape ministers and their ministries. At each step of the crazy journey God has had us on, we have made mistakes that should have killed us. But God has continually saved us from ourselves and, like the perfect Father that he is, has taught us important lessons.

Before we get started, I want to ask you a handful of questions that I continually ask myself to ensure that our church remains faithful to Jesus and his mission in our city. These questions will help provide us a common jargon for understanding one another. They are intended to help clarify your church’s identity, gospel, mission, size, and priorities.

Question 1

Will your Rev. require reformission?In my previous book, The Radical Reformission: Reaching Out

without Selling Out, I explained the growing reformation of what it means to be a Chris tian missionary.1 Missions once solely meant sending American Chris tians into foreign lands and cultures to live among the people there and to bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to



Ten Curious Questions • 15

them in a relevant way. But reformission also seeks to determine how Chris tians and their churches can most effectively be mission-aries to their own local cultures.

Reformission, therefore, begins with a simple return to Jesus, who, by grace saves us and sends us into reformission. Jesus has called us to (1) the gospel (loving our Lord), (2) the culture (lov-ing our neighbor), and (3) the church (loving our Chris tian broth-ers and sisters). One of the causes for the lack of reformission in the American church is that various Chris tian traditions are prone to faithfulness on only one or two of these counts. Consequently, when we fail to love the Lord, our culture, and our church simul-taneously, reformation ceases, leaving one of three holes: the para-church, liberalism, and fundamentalism.

Gospel + Culture – Church = Parachurch

First, some people become so frustrated with the church that they bring the gospel into culture without it. This is referred to as the parachurch and includes evangelistic ministries such as Young Life and Campus Crusade for Christ. The parachurch has a pro-pensity to love the Lord and love its neighbors but not to love the church.

Culture + Church – Gospel = Liberalism

Second, some churches are so concerned with being cultur-ally relevant that, though they are deeply involved in the culture, they neglect the gospel. This is classic liberal Chris tian ity. Liberal Chris tians run the risk of loving their neighbors and their Chris-tian brothers and sisters at the expense of loving their Lord and his gospel.

Church + Gospel – Culture = Fundamentalism

Third, some churches are more into their church and its tradi-tions, buildings, and politics than they are the gospel. Though they know the gospel theologically, they rarely take it out of their church. This is classic fundamentalist Chris tian ity, which flourishes most



16 • Confessions of a Reformission Rev.

widely in more independent-minded, Bible-believing churches. Fundamental Chris tians are prone to love their Lord and their brothers and sisters but not their neighbors.

The only way out of these holes is repentance, which enables reformission. Through repentance, Chris tians and churches are empowered by the Holy Spirit to simultaneously love the Lord, love their neighbors, and love their Chris tian brothers and sisters.

Gospel + Culture + Church = Reformission

Reformission combines the best aspects of each of these types of Chris tian ity: living in the tension of being culturally liberal yet theologically conservative Chris tians and churches who are abso-lutely driven by the gospel of grace to love their Lord, their neigh-bors, and their fellow Chris tians. This book is a painfully honest chronological account of our church’s reformission and how it caused us to grow from 0 to 4,000 people in eight years.

Question 2

Will your church be traditional and institutional, contemporary and evangelical, or emerging and missional?

For the past one thousand years, the Western church has enjoyed a privileged position in the center of culture, during what was known as Christendom. Because of this, the church also provided a common moral framework and language for our nation. Simple examples would include the frequent biblical allusions in the writ-ings of our founding fathers and, more recently, the deeply biblical imagery in the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr.

During the era of Christendom, it was generally believed that our national culture was Chris tian, or at least Judeo-Chris tian. Consequently, it was the job of the church to make converts for the nation by challenging people to commit themselves to Jesus and live morally. The upside of Christendom was that many people did attend church. The downside was that the church in large part became the servant of morality and the national good. The result




was a mean-spirited hypocrisy among “Chris tians” who wrongly believed morality and redemption were synonymous and lived lives more dominated by the American values of pride and selfishness than by the gospel virtues of humility and selflessness. Also, Chris-tendom churches defined themselves in contrast to other competing churches, which often led to unnecessary hostility between Chris-tian traditions that were distinct but not altogether different.

The era of Christendom was dominated by the traditional and institutional church, which is marked by the following traits:2

• Missions is solely funding Americans to evangelize in foreign countries.

• Culture is where the church expects to occupy a privileged position of influence.

• The primary culture to reach is modern.

• Theology is liberalism or fundamentalism, with fighting between the two sides.

• Churches exist largely to meet the needs of church members.

• Churches grow through births and attracting people with denominational loyalties.

• Community means the church is a subculture that is closed to outsiders.

• Pastors are selected and trained in seminaries, outside of the local church.

• Pastors are servants and teachers who do most of the church ministry, especially evangelization of the lost.

• Lost people are not frequently pursued for evangelistic relationships.

• Faith is private and personal.

• Worship ser vices are based on tradition (e.g., robes, hymnals, organs, liturgy).

• Church buildings are considered sacred places (e.g., crosses, stained glass, icons) where people are to dress and act formally.




As the era of Christendom began to wind down, it became appar-ent that two things were needed. First, the dwindling remnant of Christendom included many people who attended church but did not know Jesus and needed to be saved. Second, the growing baby-boom generation was less likely to attend church and less attracted by tradition or the denominational heritage than their parents had been. The result was the birth of a new form of church, the con-temporary and evangelical church, which sought to evangelize the unsaved in the church and to bring other unsaved to the church to be evangelized. Today, the traditional and institutional church is hemorrhaging to death. In 1906, 40 percent of all Sunday worship-ers were in mainline denominations.3 By 1999, that number had fallen to only 16 percent of all worshipers because less people were attending church and those who did were choosing the newer form of church.4

The end of Christendom and the transition to a post-Chris tian culture is currently dominated by the contemporary and evangelical church, which is marked by the following common traits:

• Missions is a church department that sends people and money to foreign countries.

• Culture is where the church battles to regain a lost position of privileged influence.

• The primary culture to reach was modern and is transitioning to postmodern.

• Theology is conservative and is built on a modernistic view of truth and knowledge.

• Churches exist to meet the felt needs of spiritual consumers.

• Churches grow through marketing that brings people to church events.

• Community means the church is a safe subculture that welcomes lost people into the church.

• Pastors need not have formal theological training or ordination.




• Pastors are CEOs who lead and manage their staff, which is responsible for ministry.

• Lost people are invited to evangelistic church programs that target seekers.

• Faith is private and personal but is openly shown at church.

• Worship ser vices are based on styles from the 1980s and 1990s (acoustic guitars, drama, etc.).

• Church buildings are functional places (e.g., no crosses, no stained glass, no icons) where people can dress and act informally.

With Christendom essentially winding down now in the United States and officially over in Europe, the traditional and institutional church is dying as its market share dries up, and the contemporary and evangelical church is scrambling to adjust to emerging post-modern cultures and generations. A third incarnation of the church is arising, the emerging and missional church, which is marked by the following traits:

• Missions is every Chris tian being a missionary to their local culture.

• The church accepts that it is marginalized in culture and holds no privileged position of influence but gains influence by serving the common good.

• The primary culture to reach is postmodern and pluralistic.

• Theology ranges from ancient orthodoxy to heterodox liberalism built on postmodern denials of true truth and known knowledge.

• Churches are the people who love Jesus and serve his mission in a local culture.

• Churches grow as Chris tians bring Jesus to lost people through hospitality.

• Community means the church is a counterculture with a new kingdom way of life through Jesus.




• Pastors need not be ordained or formally educated in theology and are trained in the church.

• Pastors are missiologists who train Chris tians to be effective missionaries.

• Lost people are saved by the Holy Spirit when and how he determines.

• Faith is lived publicly together as the church and includes all of life.

• Worship ser vices blend ancient forms and current local cultural styles.

• Church buildings are sacred, as is all of God’s creation.

Because the declining, dominant, and emerging church types each work from a different set of assumptions, it is incredibly impor-tant that churches and church leaders determine which church form they will adopt. And to answer this question, they must care-fully consider what the people in their local culture are like. For example, a church ministering to modern-thinking retirees would likely have better success with a traditional and institutional church. This explains why Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, with a tradi-tional liturgy, a robed choir, a pipe organ, and the classic oration of preacher Dr. James Kennedy, is flourishing among retirees in Florida. Conversely, a church ministering to suburban baby boom-ers would likely have better success with a contemporary and evan-gelical church, such as Willow Creek or Saddleback, and a pastor like Rick Warren or Bill Hybels. And a church ministering to spiri-tual young creative types would likely have better success with an emerging and missional church and pastor.

This book is about our church, Mars Hill, which is an emerg-ing and missional church because that is the most effective church form for reaching the city of Seattle, to which God has called us. I believe that the emerging and missional church will eventually dis-place the contemporary and evangelical church in much the same way that it displaced the traditional and institutional church. But




as long as there are varying cultures of people, there will be mul-tiple church forms.

The point is not that one of these church forms is good and the others are bad. Rather, one is likely more effective for reaching the people in your local culture than the other forms are. Therefore, those using one church form need not critique the other forms as long as all are faithful to the functions mandated for the church in Scripture.

To be effective, churches and their leaders must first evaluate what type of church they presently are. Churches must also evalu-ate what their culture will look like in the future and how their church can best prepare to reach that emerging culture. They must then become the church that their future culture will need, if they are not already.

Question 3

Will your church be an emergent liberal church or an emerging evangelical church?

I was part of what is now known as the Emerging Church Move-ment in its early days and spent a few years traveling the country to speak to emerging leaders in an effort to help build a missional movement in the United States. The wonderful upside of the emerg-ing church is that it elevates mission in American culture to a high priority, which is a need so urgent that its importance can hardly be overstated.

I had to distance myself, however, from one of many streams in the emerging church because of theological differences. Since the late 1990s, this stream has become known as Emergent. The emergent church is part of the Emerging Church Movement but does not embrace the dominant ideology of the movement. Rather, the emergent church is the latest version of liberalism. The only difference is that the old liberalism accommodated modernity and the new liberalism accommodates postmodernity.




During dinner one evening with a friend, Dan Kimball, who wrote The Emerging Church, I was struck by his distinction between the emergent church and the emerging church.5 There has been much confusion on this matter, partly due to the similarity in names. The emerging church is a growing, loosely connected movement of primarily young pastors who are glad to see the end of modernity and are seeking to function as missionaries who bring the gospel of Jesus Christ to emerging and postmodern cultures. The emerg-ing church welcomes the tension of holding in one closed hand the unchanging truth of evangelical Chris tian theology ( Jude 3) and holding in one open hand the many cultural ways of showing and speaking Chris tian truth as a missionary to America (1 Cor. 9:19 – 23). Since the movement, if it can be called that, is young and is still defining its theological center, I do not want to portray the movement as ideologically unified because I myself swim in the theologically conservative stream of the emerging church.

I am particularly concerned, however, with some growing trends among some people: the rejection of Jesus’ death on the cross as a penal substitute for our sins;6 resistance to openly denouncing homosexual acts as sinful;7 the questioning of a literal eternal tor-ment in hell, which is a denial that holds up only until, in an ironic bummer, you die and find yourself in hell;8 the rejection of God’s sovereignty over and knowledge of the future, as if God were a junior-college professor who knows only bits and pieces of trivia;9 the rejection of biblically defined gender roles, thereby contribut-ing to the “mantropy” epidemic among young guys now fretting over the best kind of looffah for their skin type and the number of women in the military dying to save their Bed, Bath and Beyond from terrorist attacks;10 and the rejection of biblical names for God, such as Father, which is essentially apologizing before the unbeliev-ing world for the prayer life of the flamboyantly heterosexual Jesus, who uttered the horrendously politically incorrect “Our Father” without ever having the decency to apologize for being a misogynist patriarchal meanie.11 This is ultimately all the result of a diminished respect for the perfection, authority, and clarity of Scripture, all of




which was written by patriarchal men. After all, how in the world can we possibly know what anything means after we have a college degree?12 Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what I mean when I say that I’m not sure what Scripture means — know what I mean?

For some Emergent leaders, this critique may be as welcome as water on a cat. But I assure you that I speak as one within the Emerging Church Movement who has great love and appreciation for Chris tian leaders with theological convictions much different from my own. And because the movement has defined itself as a conversation, I would hope there would be room in the conversation for those who disagree, even poke a bit of fun, but earnestly desire to learn from and journey with those also striving to be faithful to God and fruitful in emerging cultures. Standing with my brothers and sisters in our great mission, I hope this book can in some small way help the greater church emerge in biblical faithfulness and mis-sional fruitfulness.

Therefore, it is very important that any church seeking to be emerging define whether it is an emerging evangelical church or an emergent liberal church. Our church is emerging and missional in its practice and evangelical and biblical in its theology.

Question 4

Will you proclaim a gospel of forgiveness, fulfillment, or freedom?Traditional, contemporary, and emerging churches also differ

in how they present the gospel. The traditional church generally proclaims a gospel of forgiveness. According to the gospel of for-giveness, we have sinned against God and are under his wrath until we ask for his forgiveness and live changed lives of repentance. This gospel worked for people in Christendom because they had a gen-eral knowledge of authority, sin, judgment, hell, and Jesus.

Though this gospel made sense to most people at one time, this sort of gospel seems judgmental, mean-spirited, naive, and narrow-minded to the ever-growing number of people who do not under-stand the basic tenets of Chris tian ity. Such people do not appreciate




being pushed to make an immediate decision to reject sin and accept Jesus because they don’t know what sin is or who Jesus is until we have taken the time to inform their understanding, which may take months or years in a friendship.

The contemporary church generally proclaims a gospel of ful-fillment. This gospel is influenced by the non-Chris tian psycholo-gist Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs.13 His point is that people move from basic survival needs to higher needs of actualiz-ing their full potential to be and do all that they desire. The prob-lem with Maslow’s theory is simple but significant. He establishes each individual human being as their own god, on their own mis-sion, pursuing their own glory. In this framework, I do not exist for God but rather God exists for me. For example, if the Lord’s Prayer were rewritten according to Maslow’s priorities, it would read “My kingdom come, my will be done, for mine is the kingdom, power, and glory.”

The contemporary church’s gospel of fulfillment essentially accepts Maslow’s faulty hierarchy and teaches that God exists to enable each of us to actualize our full potential. So in this therapeu-tic gospel, you use Jesus to achieve your ends, which can vary from health to wealth to emotional contentment, or whatever personal vision you have for your own glory.14 What hinders the fulfillment of our full potential is not that we are sinners but rather that we don’t love ourselves enough and don’t have enough self-esteem and positive thinking. God exists to worship us, by telling us how love-able we are and how valuable we are. In this gospel, the cross is an echo of my own great worth, since God found me so loveable and so valuable that he was willing to die for me so that I could love myself, believe in myself, and achieve my full glory.

The therapeutic gospel is a false gospel and an enemy of mis-sion for many reasons. First, it does not call me to love God and my neighbor, but instead only to love myself. Second, it does not call me to God’s mission but rather calls God to my mission. Third, it does not call me to be part of the church to serve God’s mission, but instead to use the church to make me a better person. Fourth,




it does not call me to use my spiritual gift(s) to build up the church but rather to actualize my full potential. Fifth, it takes pride, which Augustine called the mother of all sins, and repackages it as self-esteem, the maidservant of all virtue.

The emerging church proclaims a gospel of freedom. Accord-ing to the gospel of freedom, we were made to live in community with God and with each other without the pains of sin and death. But because of our sin, we have wrecked God’s good creation and brought death and havoc into all of life. And though we are self-destructive, God in his loving-kindness has chosen to save us from ourselves. Our God, Jesus, came to live without sin as our example, die for our sin as our substitute, and rise from death as our Lord who liberates us from Satan, sin, and death.

The gospel of freedom says that only through Jesus can we be brought back into friendship with God and with each other, because he takes away the sin that separates us. And only through Jesus can we be brought back into his original intentions for us: worshiping God instead of ourselves, serving the common good, making cul-ture, and through his grace, helping to right what has been made wrong through sin. The Bible is replete with the gospel of freedom, beginning with Moses. Perhaps the most obvious example is found in the story of the Exodus, from which Paul adopts his understand-ing of redemption to mean being freed by God from slavery to evil.

Question 5

Will your church be attractional, missional, or both?The contemporary church growth movement and its evangeli-

cal seeker churches are attraction-based, meaning that the church functions as a purveyor of religious goods and ser vices. Therefore, the primary task of these churches is to bring people from the cul-ture into the church to partake of programming that targets their felt needs.




Conversely, emerging and missional churches see the church’s primary task as sending Chris tians out of the church and into the culture to serve as missionaries through relationships, rather than bringing lost people into the church to be served by programming. Pastors of emerging and missional churches routinely criticize the attraction-based model as caring only about bringing more people in to grow a bigger church. And pastors of attraction-based churches commonly defend themselves by stating that their churches are larger than most emerging and missional churches, which they say proves that attraction-based churches are more effectively making disciples as Jesus commanded.

The growing criticism between these camps is in large part unnecessary, because they are working for the same goal — the reaching of lost people for Jesus — but simply using different meth-ods, methods that are complimentary, not contradictory. Conse-quently, churches must both bring people in and send people out and must therefore structure themselves to achieve both objectives. Additionally, we see both attractional and missional ministry meth-ods in the life of Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ incarnation is in itself missional. God the Father sent God the Son into culture on a mission to redeem the elect by the power of God the Ghost. After his resurrection, Jesus also sent his dis-ciples into culture, on a mission to proclaim the success of his mis-sion, and commissioned all Chris tians to likewise be missionaries to the cultures of the world (e.g., Matt. 28:18 – 20; John 20:21; Acts 1:7 – 8). Emerging and missional Chris tians have wonderfully redis-covered the significance of Jesus’ incarnational example of being a missionary immersed in a culture.

But sadly, they are also prone to overlook the attractional nature of Jesus’ earthly ministry.15 In addition to immersing himself in a culture for a mission, Jesus’ ministry was also marked by the large crowds that were drawn to him because of his preaching and miracles.

One important example of the attractional elements of Jesus’ ministry is found in the sixth chapter of John’s gospel. A very large




crowd, numbering thousands of people, came to see Jesus perform miracles and to hear him preach. Jesus appears to be modeling attractional church growth strategies of doing what was needed to gather many people to hear the preaching of the gospel. Jesus then fed the entire crowd by miraculously multiplying a little boy’s lunch, which would only have increased the crowds that thronged to see him.

But Jesus then preached that he was the bread of life, which drove many people away from him in confusion and disagreement. We see that Jesus not only gathered a crowd but also intentionally drove many people away because they were not among the elect chosen for salvation ( John 6:37). Some disciples, however, remained with Jesus and continued to be trained as missionaries by Jesus. They were later sent out to follow his pattern of incarnating in a culture, attracting crowds, preaching hard words that harden some hearts and soften others, and then training those who believe to be missionaries who follow Jesus’ principles of attractional and mis-sional ministry.

Therefore, the growing hostility between attractional-ministry pastors with larger churches and missional-ministry pastors with smaller churches need not occur. Instead, each needs to learn from the other; each has a vital piece of the truth gleaned from the life of Jesus.

Attractional churches need to transform their people from being consumers in the church to being missionaries outside of the church. Missional churches need to gather crowds to their church so that hard words of repentance can be preached in an effort to expose people’s hearts. Those whom God saves can then be trained to go back out into the culture as missionaries to gather more people to repeat the process. Simply, the goal of a church that is both mis-sional and attractional is to continually follow Jesus’ example so that more people are saved for God’s mission and more influence is spread for God’s kingdom, without rejecting one aspect of Jesus’ ministry in favor of another.




Question 6

What size shoe will your church wear?Churches, like children, have a shoe size that they will grow

into. As a church grows, it must accept its size. This can be diffi-cult because people have different ideas of what constitutes “large” and “small.” Additionally, people are prone to attach a moral value to church size. This means that people who prefer a small church will criticize a large church for being too slick and impersonal, and people who prefer a big church will criticize a small church for not experiencing enough conversion growth, diversity of people, or quality of programming.

When it comes to church size, a few things are important to remember. First, a church must determine what size they would like to become and start acting like a church of that size if they hope to achieve that goal. Second, a church must accept its size and not allow people to demand that they receive the type of treatment they would receive at a church of whatever size they prefer. An example of this would be the expectation of some people in a large church that the pastor be as accessible as the pastor of a smaller church. Third, for a church to grow, it must also accept that the church will change. The problem with most churches is not that they don’t want to experi-ence conversion growth but rather that they do not want to change, which negates their ability to grow and is a sin to be repented of.

Therefore, each church must ask how large they want to be and prepare to work toward that goal. To help determine a reasonable goal, it is helpful to see the various sizes of other churches. How-ever, determining size categories for churches is very difficult. The following is a rough estimate I came up with after reading some books on the subject16 and interviewing John Vaughan of Church Growth Today, who was particularly helpful. No one is exactly sure how many Protestant churches there are in the United States, but the general figures are somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000




churches.17 So for purposes of a rough estimate, I am assuming that there are 400,000 Protestant churches in the United States. I am also assuming that the reported attendance at these churches is accurate, which is highly questionable since the overreporting of church attendance is estimated by some to be as high as 50 per-cent.18 Therefore, a rough estimate of weekly church attendance for adults and children in America breaks down as follows:

Churches with 45 people or less 100,000 churches, 25% of all churches





Churches with 800 people or more 8,000 churches, 2% of all churches

Churches with 2,000 people or more 870 churches, 0.22% of all churches

Churches with 3,000 people or more 425 churches, 0.11% of all churches

Summarily, George Barna says, “Four out of ten church-going adults (41%) go to churches with 100 or fewer adults while about one out of eight church-going adults (12%) can be found in churches of 1000 or more adults.”19

According to church expert Lyle Schaller, the two most com-fortable church sizes are 45 people or less and 150 people or less.20 Consequently, these are likely also the hardest size barriers a pastor has to push through. Practically, it seems that churches of 45 people or less are large enough to gather for worship and function as a church but small enough for everyone to know each other and have a say in everything that happens. A congregation of 150 or less can usually gather in one ser vice and exist as one community, yet have the resources to hire a pastor to care for all the people. These fac-tors may help explain why the average church in America is report-edly 89 people.21

Pushing through the 350 barrier can also be very difficult, because it usually requires that the church transition to multiple




pastors, multiple ser vices, and multiple communities. The follow-ing chapters will speak very practically of how we navigated through each of these seasons, from being a church of under 45 people to being a church of over 4,000 people. I acknowledge that some read-ers may be turned off by my focus on numbers, even though we have a book of the Bible titled the same word. But every number is a person, so numbers do matter because people matter.

A megachurch is technically 2,000 or more adults and children in weekly worship.22 The first modern megachurch was led by my favorite Chris tian outside of the Bible, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, whose church grew to more than 5,000 people in London in the late nineteenth century.23 Perhaps the first megachurch in America was led by the aberrant theologian Charles Finney, who preached to between 2,000 and 3,000 people each week at Chatham Street Chapel in New York City in the late nineteenth century.24 In 1970, there were only 10 non-Catholic megachurches in the United States.25 Today there are more than 1,000 U. S. megachurches, and a new church breaks the 2,000-attendance threshold every 2 days, according to megachurch expert John Vaughan.26

But emerging and missional churches will include more mega-churches than ever, and they will be both attractional and missional in their philosophy of ministry. If a church is truly missional, it may become a megachurch for three reasons: (1) the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ is powerful and effective, (2) a truly outward-focused missional church will experience conversion growth, and (3) a truly missional church has such a burning desire for cultural transformation that it must grow large enough to serve a whole city. Mars Hill is one of the first emerging and missional megachurches in the country to target postmodern culture.

Schaller notes that most people born after 1965 are used to func-tioning in much larger institutions (e.g., schools, grocery stores, hardware stores).27 Therefore, younger people generally feel at home in larger churches, which partially explains the popularity of mega-churches and the willingness of younger people to drive greater dis-tances to attend a megachurch.




Schaller’s teaching and our experience at Mars Hill confirms that emerging generations indeed feel more comfortable in larger churches. This information runs contrary to much of the popular teaching today, which asserts that the future of the church will be house churches and smaller church communities. I believe that the megachurch phenomenon is not over but rather just beginning, that the “experts” are simply wrong, and that the future trend will be toward the extremes of very small and very large churches.

Nothing is wrong with a small church, providing it hates sin, loves Jesus, serves people, obeys Scripture, and sees transformed lives. However, I find the conversation among numerous young pastors who prefer smaller churches to be theologically troubling. The governing assumption is that the early church, described in Acts, was not a megachurch with systems and structures but simply small groups of Chris tians hanging out informally in one another’s homes.

This position was reinforced in a conversation I had with Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch, who wrote the popular and insightful book The Shaping of Things to Come.28 During a lecture they gave in the Seattle area, they stressed this point and referenced the account of Acts 2:42 – 47, in which the early church is described as small, dis-organized, and meeting informally in homes. But what they failed to also note is that in those same verses, the early church did meet in a larger gathering in the temple courts. And in Acts 2:41, God added three thousand converts in one day, making the early church an immediate megachurch. Curiously, this was accomplished by a good sermon about Jesus — the very thing that many young pastors decry as a modern act, when it is in fact simply biblical.

Additionally, church history confirms that from its earliest days, Chris tian ity was marked by megachurches. As early as AD 323, church buildings were reportedly constructed that could accommo-date upwards of 10,000 to 20,000 Chris tian worshipers at a time.29 Therefore, the existence of larger churches is not a modern phe-nomenon but is in fact something God has been doing since the days of Pentecost.




In 1980, the largest church in America was 13,000 people, and in 2003, the largest church was 25,000 people.30 While a church of 25,000 people may seem very large to many, size is indeed relative when you consider the world’s largest church, Yoido Full Gospel Church, in Seoul, Korea, which has 763,000 church members.31 Therefore, each church must ask how large they expect to be and labor toward seeing enough conversions to achieve that goal. In set-ting this goal, a church must be realistic, since not every church can or should be a megachurch. A church should also not seek to limit its conversion growth simply because they wrongly believe that smaller churches are closer to the early church model.

Question 7

Will your church have a mission of community or be a community of mission?

The buzzword community is so often bantered about that it is nearly devoid of meaning. But since the church is a community, it is important to define what kind of community the church should be. Without a clear definition of what a missional church commu-nity is and does, tragically, community will become the mission of the church. Consequently, the goal of people will be to hang out together in love, like the family they never had. While this is not evil, it is also not sufficient.

If taken too far, this can lead to the heresy of participatory redemption, in which the goal is to have authentic friendships and a loving community instead of repentance and personal faith in Jesus Christ as the means of salvation. This error is a very real threat that is overlooked by many young Chris tian leaders I meet who prefer smaller and more loosely defined neo-church arrangements and so-called new monastic communities, in which being in community sometimes takes priority over being in Christ.

In Scripture, we see two prototypical communities: Babel/Bab-ylon and Pentecost. Their similarities and differences are noted below.32




Babel Community Pentecost Community

A small city A large kingdom

Built to house a few people Built to house many people

Marked by walls Marked by no walls

Intentionally resisted diversity Intentionally pursued diversity

Avoided hospitality Practiced hospitality

Gathered a homogenous people Gathered a heterogeneous people

Made their name great Made Jesus’ name great

God came down God came down

God judged their sin God forgave their sin

God confused their languages God unified their languages

The Babylonian version of community is godless affinity. Bab-ylonian community does not aspire to grow except by internal births, does not welcome people who are different, does not practice hospitality, and seeks to remain safe and successful. Community is the only goal for churches who think Babylonian. God’s response to Babylonian community is judgment and scattering, because it is a sin, especially in the church.

The Pentecost version of community exists for mission, not for itself. Pentecost community is not held together because people are similar but rather because they are on the same mission with the same Lord. Because of this, Pentecost community is marked by a desire to expand God’s kingdom through the salvation of many diverse people, who are hospitably welcomed to learn about the greatness of Jesus. People who think with a Pentecost mindset do not see the building of community in their church as their mis-sion. Rather, they see their church community as existing solely for God’s mission, and they accept that the only way to have healthy community is to pursue God’s mission of reaching lost people because community is an effect of mission but not an effective mis-sion. God’s response to Pentecost missional community is grace and unity through the Holy Spirit.




Question 8

Will your leaders work from guilt or conviction?One of the greatest inhibitors of keeping a church on mission is

the erroneous spoken and unspoken expectations people have for church leaders and their families. In a missional church, the lead pastor is the architect who builds the ship more than he is the cap-tain who pilots it, the cook who washes dishes in the galley, or the activities director who coordinates the shuffleboard reservations.33 The role of architect is incredibly important because most pastors have been trained how to work on a ship instead of how to build a ship. Having a skilled captain, cook, and activities director is impor-tant but does not really matter if the ship can’t float, which means that boat building is the most important job. Likewise, the pastor’s highest task is to plan the building of a church that will float and to allow everyone else to use their talents and gifts to accomplish the overall mission God has for that church.

Most pastors, however, work in their boat and not on their boat because often the Chris tians in a pastor’s church have mastered the art of making him feel guilty and making their needs seem urgent and important, when they rarely are.34 Therefore, leaders of emerging and missional churches must work from the convic-tion that comes from God and his Word instead of from the guilt that comes from people and their words. Leaders must frequently decide between offending Christ or a Chris tian, and Ghost-guided biblical conviction alone must determine the duties of church lead-ers. Otherwise, church leaders will waste their time washing dishes while their church sinks.

Question 9

Do you have the guts to shoot your dogs?Dogs are idiotic ideas, stinky styles, stupid systems, failed facili-

ties, terrible technologies, loser leaders, and pathetic people. Most churches know who and what their dogs are but simply lack the courage to pull the trigger and shoot their dogs. Therefore, it is




vital to name with brutal candor the people, programs, structures, and ministry philosophies that are dogs needing to be shot. Be sure to make it count and shoot them only once so that they don’t come back and bite you.35

Question 10

Can you wield a sword and a trowel?In the days of Nehemiah, when the Israelites’ mission was to

rebuild the wall, Nehemiah had his people carry a trowel in one hand to build and a sword in the other to defend their work. As we build our churches in a culture no less hostile than that of Nehemiah, we too must learn how to both build a missional church and defend it from Satan, demons, and evildoers. In the following chapters, I will be painfully honest about the shots from hell that nearly killed my family and our church. In the next chapter, we’ll start our journey in the hot upstairs youth room of a fundamentalist church.




Reformission Reflections

1. Do you personally tend toward liberalism, fundamentalism, or reformission? Why?

2. Does your church or ministry tend toward liberalism, fundamentalism, or reformission? Why?

3. Should your church or ministry be traditional, contemporary, or missional? Why?

4. Is your church or ministry better at being attractional or missional? How could improvements be made where it is weak?

5. How large is your church or ministry? How large should it be in the next year, five years, and ten years?

6. Does your church or ministry community exist for the mission of reaching lost people or primarily for itself?

7. Name at least ten dogs in your church or ministry that need to be shot.

8. What does your church or ministry need to be defended from to remain healthy? What can be done to defend it?



Contents

Foreword by Erwin Raphael McManus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Preface: A Prediction for the Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9

Part One:The Birth of the Multi-Site Movement One: You Say You Want a Revolution? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Meet several highly successful multi-site churches

Two: A Wide Variety of Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .26 Notice the broad range of models in this overview

of the multi-site movement

Part Two:How to Become One Church in Many Locations Three: Would It Work for You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Consider why your church should explore multi-site

as a strategy

Four: On a Mission from God . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60 Discern God’s call for your church and leadership

Five: Opportunity Knocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Don’t expect “We’ve always done it this way” to

become your church motto

Six: Selling the Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .84 Learn how to use effective vision casting, helpful

language, and strategic field trips

Seven: Who’s Going to Pay for This? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .96 Discover how to do multi-site in ways your church

can afford

Eight: Launching the Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 Evaluate these common factors in the successful

launch of a second location

0310270154_multisite.indd 50310270154_multisite.indd 5 3/2/06 3:39:42 PM3/2/06 3:39:42 PM


Part Three:What Makes Multi-Site Work Best Nine: Hitting the Sweet Spot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125 Make sure to define and replicate your unique DNA

with help from these ideas

Ten: Designing the Right Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .133 Learn to grow at multiple locations by modifying

the way you staff, structure, and communicate

Eleven: Building Better Leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .142 Experience success by emphasizing the role of campus

pastors, developing the next generation of leaders, and promoting from within

Twelve: Leveraging Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .163 Find the right balance of technology, whether you

use in-person teaching or video

Thirteen: Avoiding Detours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173 Learn important lessons from churches that have

taken wrong turns or hit roadblocks

Part Four:Why Extend Further and Reach More People? Fourteen: Secrets of Ongoing Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .185 Don’t let your dream stop short of developing an

entire movement of replicating campuses

Fifteen: Where Do We Go from Here? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .195 Be part of turning the tide in a battle being lost by

current approaches to doing church

Appendix A: Internet Link for Multi-Site Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . .201Appendix B: International Multi-Site Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202Appendix C: Directory of Multi-Site Churches Cited . . . . . . . . . . .204Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .209Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .222



15

Chapter

You Say You Want a Revolution?Meet several highly successful multi-site churches

These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also. — ACTS 17:6 ESV

It is coming . . . a movement of God. Some even call it a revolution.On Sunday morning at Seacoast Church, where I (Geoff) serve on

staff in Charleston, South Carolina, a band launches into a hard-driv-ing worship chorus as lyrics and background images are projected on screens and television monitors throughout the auditorium. Everyone begins to sing along with the worship team.

This describes the experience at many contemporary churches, except that this scene happens eighteen times each weekend in nine locations around the state, all of which are known as Seacoast Church. Using many different bands and worship leaders, Seacoast’s eighteen nearly identical weekend ser vices represent the look of a church that chose not to fight city hall in order to construct a bigger building. We instead continued to reach new people by developing additional campuses.

One



16 • The Birth of the Multi-Site Movement

At another church across the country, a congregation just north of San Diego sings “How Great Thou Art” in Traditions, one of six venues on the same church campus. North Coast Church in Vista, Califor-nia, developed six different worship atmospheres, all within a few feet of each other. Traditions is more intimate and nostalgic, while other venues range from country gospel to a coffeehouse feel to vibrating, big subwoofer attitude.

The elements unifying these six on-site venues are the message (one venue features in-person preaching, and the others use videocasts) and the weekly adult small groups, whose discussion questions cen-ter on the sermon that everyone heard, no matter which venue they attended. North Coast has now developed multiple venues on addi-tional campuses, so that on a typical weekend in early 2006, worshipers chose between more than twenty different ser vices spread across five campuses.

Over in Texas, Ed Young Jr., senior pastor of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, preaches every Sunday morning on four campuses — Grapevine, Uptown Dallas, Plano, and Alliance — all at the same time. Ed delivers his Saturday night message in person in the main sanctuary on the Grapevine campus. It is videotaped and viewed the following morning by congregations at the other venues via LCD projectors and giant projection screens, framed by live music and a campus pastor. “We decided we could reach more people and save a huge amount of money by going to where the people are and doing smaller venues instead of building a larger worship center in Grape-vine,” Ed says.

In downtown Chicago at New Life Bridgeport, a small church meets in a century-old former United Church of Christ facility. The pastor, Luke Dudenhoffer, preaches a sermon that he’s worked on with up to ten other pastors across the city. Each pastor leads a satellite congrega-tion of New Life Community Church, which is known as one church in many locations.

At Community Chris tian Church in Chicagoland, eight different drama teams perform the same sketch at eight different locations. Then up to three different teachers deliver a message they’ve devel-oped collaboratively. Most ser vices have an in-person preacher, though some sermons are videocasts.



You Say You Want a Revolution? • 17

These churches, and more than 1,500 churches like them across the country, are discovering a new model for doing church. Going beyond additional ser vice times and larger buildings, churches are expanding into multiple venues and locations, and many of them are seeing increased evangelism and even exponential growth as a result. The approach of taking one church to multiple sites seems to be the beginning of a revolution in how church is done in North America and around the world.

When four university computers were linked together for the first time on some-thing called ARPANET in the fall of 1969, there was very little press coverage of the event. Aside from the scientists working on the project, no one considered this event revolutionary; it was just an adaptation of concepts that had existed for many years. In spite of such simple beginnings, ARPANET, known today as the Internet, has revolutionized almost every aspect of our lives in the twenty-first century — from how people get sports scores to how they buy airline tickets to how they size up a church before visiting it.

Revolutions often begin with little fanfare. They are usually built on concepts that have existed for many years and are seldom recognized in the beginning as revolutionary. The measure of a revolution is its impact, not its origins.

That is why we believe the multi-site church movement is revolu-tionary. The concept of having church in more than one location isn’t new or revolutionary; the roots of multi-site go back to the church of Acts, which had to scatter due to persecution. Elmer Towns points out that the original Jerusalem church “was one large group (celebra-

tion), and many smaller groups (cells). . . . The norm for the New Testament church included both small cell

groups and larger celebration groups.”1 Likewise, Aubrey Malphurs observes that Corinth and other first-century churches were multi-site, as a num-ber of multi-site house churches were considered

to be part of one citywide church.2

The approach of

taking one church to multiple sites seems to be

the beginning of a revolution in how church is done in North

America and around the world.

The measure of

a revolution is its impact, not its

origins.




Multi-Site Overview

What is a multi-site church? A multi-site church is one church meeting in multiple locations — different rooms on the same campus, different loca-tions in the same region, or in some instances, different cities, states, or nations. A multi-site church shares a common vision, budget, leadership, and board.

What does a multi-site church look like? A multi-site church can resem-ble any of a wide variety of models. For some churches, having multiple sites involves only a worship ser vice at each location; for others, each location has a full range of support ministries. Some churches use video-cast sermons (recorded or live); others have in-person teaching on-site. Some churches maintain a similar worship atmosphere and style at all their campuses, and others allow or invite variation.

What kind of church uses the multi-site approach? The multi-site approach works best for already growing churches but is used by all types of churches. The majority of multi-site churches are suburban, but many can be found in urban contexts and some in rural contexts. Multi-sites are found among old churches and new, mainline and nondenominational, and in all regions of the country. Smaller churches (30 – 200 people) tend to do multi-site as a niche outreach or as a regional-campus approach. Medium-size churches (200 – 800 people) that go multi-site tend to have only two or three campuses. Larger churches (800 – 2,000 people) and megachurches (2,000 people and up) are the most likely to be multi-site and to do it in a way that develops a large network of campuses.

Why become multi-site? The purpose of becoming a multi-site church is to make more and better disciples by bringing the church closer to where people are. The motivation is to do a better job of loving people, including different types of people, with an outcome of making significant advances in obeying Jesus’ Great Commandment (Matt. 22:37 – 40) and Great Com-mission (Matt. 28:19 – 20).

How long do multi-site churches last? Several churches have been multi-site for up to twenty years, and a handful for even longer. Some churches use a multi-site approach as a transitional strategy during a building pro-gram or a seasonal outreach. Other churches intentionally choose to be multi-site only temporarily as a church-planting strategy to help new con-gregations start out strong.




Until recent years, few churches in this century have purposely pur-sued a multi-site strategy. In fact, many churches in the movement have stumbled into multi-site almost by accident. The potential impact of the multi-site movement, however, is extraordinary. Even though the movement is still in the very early stages, multi-site churches are beginning to have a significant influence on how people are being reached with the good news of Jesus Christ.

For Most Churches, Multi-Site Is a “God Thing”

True to historic movements, this new paradigm is finding expres-sion around the world, across all denominations, church sizes, and structures. Churches with 20, 200, 2,000, and 20,000 attendees are experimenting with the “one church in many locations” idea, while denominations are testing multi-site as both a church revitalization model and an alternative to customary church-planting models.

The multi-site movement, however, isn’t confined to the suburbs or to the opening of new locations for growing churches. Urban churches facing the prospect of closure due to dwindling membership are being revitalized as they become satellite campuses of a growing congregation elsewhere in their city. Rural churches are expanding into other communities in their region as they continue to grow in their own town or village. The impact of multi-site churches of every size, shape, and denominational background is just beginning.

It seems to be happening everywhere, with each church having a different trigger point.

After preaching the two Saturday evening ser vices, Craig Groeschel went home with his pregnant wife, Amy, and in the middle of the night, they headed to the hospital for Amy to give birth to their fourth child. Craig was not going to make it for the next morning’s ser vices in their fast-growing congregation, Life Church in Oklahoma City (which stylizes its name as LifeChurch.tv).

Now what? they wondered back at the church. Someone had a crazy idea: “Hey, let’s roll the video from Saturday night.” That decision proved to be divinely inspired.

‘“Life Church even extended itself to Phoenix in July 2005. How can a church in one location “jump the fire trail” almost one thousand




miles like that? It starts with the church’s leadership being convinced that it is something God wants them to do as part of their mission.

A multi-site approach is well suited to fast-growing congregations like Life Church, and high-visibility congregations tend to be the ones highlighted in the recent wave of media attention to the multi-site movement. But far more churches are flying under the media radar. They come in all sizes and settings, but their results are equally as impressive.

Take, for example, twenty-five-year-old Chartwell Baptist Church in Oakwood, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, where Peter Roebbelen is pastor.

“We backed into multi-site,” says Peter. “It’s not something we intentionally tried to do. It was more like a disruptive moment when we faced a problem and saw an opportunity.” In essence, their problem became an opportunity.

For Chartwell, the initial motivation for becoming multi-site was to accommodate growth. “We needed to go to a third ser vice, but we wanted to do it during the optimal Sunday morning time,” Peter explains. So Chartwell began experimenting with the use of additional campuses. That was in 1993. Ten years later, Chartwell was offering six Saturday night or Sunday morning ser vices on four campuses. By 2005, more than 1,200 people regularly attended one of the Chart-

well congregations, yet the original church’s seating capacity was 260 — and still is — which is consis-

tent with their particular strategy of creating a sense of relational intimacy within each local worship setting.

Life Church and Chartwell are typical of how a congregation becomes multi-site. Most

churches that use a multi-site approach evolve into it, rather than starting out with it.According to our research at Leadership Network,

the 1,500-plus multi-site churches across North America become multi-site by extending themselves to more than one location: some to loca-tions across town, some across the state, and some around the world.

Church analysts have been observing this trend for a number of years, which was initially seen only in the more innovative churches.

“We backed into

multi-site. It was more like a disruptive moment when we faced a problem and saw an opportunity.”

— Peter Roebbelen




In the 1990 book Ten of Today’s Most Innovative Churches by Elmer Towns, three of the ten featured churches have modeled, during some part of their recent history, the practice that the book calls “one church meeting in many locations . . . a multi-staffed church, meeting in multi-loca-tions, offering multi-ministries, with a single identity, single organization, single purpose, [and] single force of leadership.”3

Peter Roebbelen is one of the few people who has researched the development in recent years. Using a study grant from the Louisville Institute4 (funded by the Lilly Endowment), he visited a number of different locations. His analysis? “I think this is a true movement, a true new work because it’s popping up in independent situations all over the place at about the same time, literally around the world.”

The people he interviewed don’t seem to be fad driven. “It’s a God thing,” Peter concludes. “Most didn’t sit down to strategize and plan and then conclude, ‘We’re going to try multi-site,’ because none of us had heard of multi-site. We simply began doing it. The stories have been remarkably similar from coast to coast and from north to south.”

Especially Helpful for Fast-Growing ChurchesAmong the ten fastest-growing churches in the United States, 70

percent use multiple venues or multiple campuses. Likewise, among the ten largest churches in the United States, 90 percent use multiple venues or multiple campuses (see the tables on pp. 22 – 23). Among megachurches in general, 27 percent hold ser vices at off-site locations, according to a 2005 research project on megachurches.5

Some megachurches continue to build and fill huge sanctuaries. Willow Creek, Chicago, moved into a new 7,100-seat auditorium in 2004; Salem Baptist, Chicago, built a 10,000-seat mega-facility in 2005; Lakewood Church, Houston, bought and refurbished the 16,000-seat Compaq Center sports arena in 2005; First Baptist Church, Wood-stock, Georgia, finished a 7,000-seat sanctuary in 2005; Without Walls, Tampa, bought a 9,000-seat Lakeland campus and a 3,000-seat Auburndale satellite campus in 2005; and Glory Church of Jesus Christ, a Korean-American congregation in Los Angeles, bought and

Most churches that

use a multi-site approach evolve into it,

rather than starting out with it.




moved into a 7,000-seat former boxing arena, known as the Grand Olympic Auditorium, in 2006. (Two of these congregations — Willow Creek and Without Walls — have at least one other campus as well.)

The bigger trend, however, is toward smaller auditoriums. As soci-ologist Scott Thumma told National Public Radio’s All Things Consid-ered, “Many of the very large megachurches are beginning to spin off satellite or branch campuses around the city or area as a way to reach their diverse populations but also so they don’t have to continue to invest in larger and larger buildings.”6

Not a Growth Strategy by ItselfBill Easum and Dave Travis have observed that the genius of multi-

site is not that it grows your church but that it keeps your church grow-ing. In their book Beyond the Box: Innovative Churches That Work, they comment, “The key to understanding the multi-site movement is to remember that fulfilling the Great Commission drives these congrega-tions, not a growth strategy.”7

In short, multi-site is a means toward an end, not an end goal in itself. Most churches do generate growth through multi-site, but just

America’s Ten Fastest-Growing Churches

(Fastest-growing church listed first)

Multi-Site? Church Name City/State

Yes Without Walls International Church Tampa, FL

Yes Mount Zion Baptist Church White Creek, TN

No Lakewood Church Houston, TX

Yes LifeChurch.tv Oklahoma City, OK

Yes Saddleback Church Lake Forest, CA

Yes The Fountain of Praise Houston, TX

Yes Second Baptist Church Houston, TX

Yes Franklin Avenue Baptist Church New Orleans, LA

No Prestonwood Baptist Church Plano, TX

No Fellowship of the Woodlands The Woodlands, TXAdapted from Outreach’s 2005 annual ranking




as importantly, multi-site keeps them from capping the growth they’re experiencing.

Multi-Site Churches Are Bridging Today’s GapIn recent decades, American churches have morphed from seeker-

driven to purpose-driven to postmodern models, all as a response to the skyrocketing number of unchurched Americans and the constant need to apply a biblical worldview to current contexts. Church atten-dance did increase slightly (from 42 percent to 43 percent), but the actual number of unchurched adults has nearly doubled in the last fifteen years, currently numbered at 75 million.8 The net result is that despite the sincere prayers and efforts of thousands of pastors and leaders across the country, current models of church growth are not working well enough. We must continually find new ways to bridge that gap.

The new multi-site approach, from all early indications, is begin-ning to do just that. “Early indicators show that multi-site churches are more evangelistic than those with one site,” reports Thom Rainer, a prominent consultant and church researcher.9 A survey we helped

America’s Ten Largest Churches

(Largest church listed first)

Multi-Site? Church Name City/State

No Lakewood Church Houston, TX

Yes Without Walls International Church Tampa, FL

Yes Saddleback Church Lake Forest, CA

Yes Second Baptist Church Houston, TX

Yes New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Lithonia, GA

Yes Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington, IL

Yes World Changers Church International College Park, GA

Yes Southeast Chris tian Church Louisville, KY

Yes Potter’s House Dallas, TX

Yes Fellowship Church Dallas, TXAdapted from Outreach’s 2005 annual ranking




conduct in 2005 (see the table above) found that churches have a greater evangelistic impact when they become multi-site.

The many reports of conversion growth at multi-site locations affirm that something is working well. Many people who are wary of “established religion” are willing to come back to these same churches in one of their multi-site expressions, as seen in this email Seacoast Church recently received:

I am twenty-five years old and have spent the majority of my life ques-tioning religion and Chris tian ity. My wife, however, has always been an amazing Chris tian woman and example to me. She attended a ser vice [at Seacoast] last year, and she was so touched that she insisted I go. I told her I would go with her, [although] I was as far from a relationship with Jesus Christ as a person could be. I left that ser vice at the West Ashley Campus moved by [Pastor] Greg’s words, relatability [sic], and sincerity. I felt like, and have since that first ser vice, that each mes-sage was delivered solely for me. I do not know how to thank you all for bringing Christ into the life and spirit of a twenty-five-year-old atheist.

Churches are discovering the power of multiplication as they begin to grow beyond the four walls of the box they built. Moving beyond the traditional outreach and discipleship model of multiple ser vices and larger buildings, they are embracing the concept of “one church with many congregations.” And the revolution is just beginning. Imagine the impact of thousands of people in your town committing their lives to Christ for the first time. Imagine churches in your community whose attendance either has plateaued or is in decline finding new life as they partner with growing churches to reach the lost. Imagine the

Becoming Multi-Site Increases Evangelism

We’ve become more evangelistic as a church 69%

No discernable difference at this point 31%

We’ve become less evangelistic as a church 0%

Source: Survey of 1,000 Multi-Site Churches © 2005 Leadership Network, available www.leadnet.org




impact as the revolution crosses cultural and international boundar-ies to reach people who have never been exposed to the good news of the gospel.

The reasons for choosing to become a multi-site church are as varied as the multi-site expressions that have evolved, but the vast majority of multi-site congregations are finding the experience to be a solid win for their mission as a church. The next several chapters will illustrate how the multi-site approach is being used in a wide variety of settings across North America, the lessons learned, the pitfalls to avoid, and how your church can join the revolution.



�

Contents

Introduction: Idea Overload! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Part 1: Little Ideas or the Big Idea?

1 . No More Christians! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2 . Communities of Transformation, Not Information . . . . . . 29 3 . Creating Missional Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Part 2: What’s the Big Idea?

4 . The Genius of the “And” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 5 . Changing Churches One Big Idea at a Time . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Part 3: Create Your Own Big Idea

6 . Creating Your One-Year Big Idea Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95 7 . Implementing Your Big Idea Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 8 . The Two Most Important Players in the Big Idea . . . . . . . 115 9 . The Big Idea Creative Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 10 . The Big Idea Teaching Team Meeting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 11 . The Implicit Big Idea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Part 4: A Really Big Idea

12 . Creating and Reproducing Big Idea Networks . . . . . . . . . 189

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195


P a r t

oneLittLe ideas or the Big idea?


13

C h a p t e r 1

No More ChristiaNs!

What do you expect to happen as you read this book? Be honest now . In fact, I’m going to be honest too and put on the table what I hope I can convince you of in this opening chapter:

1 . If you’ve been calling yourself a Christian, you should stop . Maybe not what you were expecting? It is exactly what you and the church need — forget ever being a Christian again .

2 . If you have ever encouraged someone to become a Christian, you should never do that again . Seriously, I hope you will never again ask a friend, family member, coworker, or neigh-bor to become a Christian .

Why? Because the last thing the mission of Jesus Christ needs is more Christians .

Here is the brutal fact: 85 percent of the people in the United States call themselves Christians . Now, let’s pause long enough to realize that’s a whole lot of people — 247 million people, to be exact . But how are those 85 percent doing when it comes to accomplishing Jesus’ mission? Here is what research tells us about people in North America who call themselves Christians:

■ Those who call themselves Christians are no more likely to give assistance to a homeless person on the street than non-Christians .


Part 1: Little Ideas or the Big Idea?14

■ Those who call themselves Christians are no more likely than non-Christians to correct the mistake when a cashier gives them too much change .

■ A Christian is just as likely to have an elective abortion as a non-Christian .

■ Christians divorce at the same rate as those who consider themselves non-Christians .

■ Even though there are more big churches than ever before filled with people who proudly wear the title Christian, 50 percent of Christian churches didn’t help one single person find salvation .

In fact, when the Barna Research Group did a survey involving 152 separate items comparing the general population with those

who called themselves Chris-tians, they found virtually no difference between the two groups . They found no differ-ence in the attitudes of Chris-tians and non-Christians, and they found no difference in the actions of Christians and

non-Christians . If the contemporary concept of a Christian is of someone who is no different than the rest of the world, is Christian really the word you want to use to describe your willingness to sac-rifice everything you have to see God’s dream fulfilled? No way .

This absence of distinction between Christians and non-Chris-tians is a huge problem . But it is not a difficult problem . This is a problem for which the solutions are simple, though not easy . So this book is all about one of those simple but not easy solutions for accomplishing the mission that Jesus gave to his church .

Let’s start with a typical Sunday as a family returns home from church . The question posed to the children is the same every week: “So what did you learn today?” And the response is too often the

The last thing the mission of Jesus

Christ needs is more Christians.


CHaPtEr 1: No More Christians! 1�

same: (Silence .) “Ummm . . .” (More silence .) “Ummm . . .” (Still more silence .) “Ummm . . .”

Parents have tried to think of different ways to word the ques-tion for their kids, but it always comes out the same . “So what did you learn today?” It’s not the most enticing question, but it’s the question that gets asked millions of times every week during the car ride home from church . And the truth is, if our kids asked us, we might give them the same response: (Silence .) “Ummm . . .” (More silence .) “Ummm . . .” (Still more silence .) “Ummm . . .”

How is it possible that so many people, young and old, can respond with nothing but silence to such a simple question after spending an entire Sunday morning in church? Is it too little teach-ing? Is it too little Scripture? Is it too little application of Scripture in the teaching? What’s the problem?

Well, let’s review a typical experience at church . Is it too little or maybe too much? The average churchgoer is overloaded every week with scores of competing little ideas during just one trip to church . Let’s try to keep track .

1 . Little idea from the clever message on the church sign as you pull into the church parking lot

2 . Little idea from all the announcements in the church bulletin you are handed at the door

3 . Little idea from the prelude music that is playing in the back-ground as you take your seat

4 . Little idea from the welcome by the worship leader 5 . Little idea from the opening prayer 6 . Little idea from song 1 in the worship service

This absence of distinction between Christians and non-Christians is a huge

problem



7 . Little idea from the Scripture reading by the worship leader 8 . Little idea from song 2 in the worship service 9 . Little idea from the special music 10 . Little idea from the offering meditation 11 . Little idea from the announcements 12 . Little idea from the first point of the sermon 13 . Little idea from the second point of the sermon 14 . Little idea from the third point of the sermon 15 . Little idea from song 3 in the worship service 16 . Little idea from the closing prayer 17 . Little idea from the Sunday school lesson 18 . Little idea from (at least one) tangent off of the Sunday school

lesson 19 . Little idea from the prayer requests taken during Sunday

school 20 . Little idea from the newsletter handed out during Sunday

school

Twenty and counting . Twenty different competing little ideas in just one trip to church . Easily! If a family has a couple of chil-dren in junior church and everyone attends his or her own Sun-day school class, we could quadruple the number of little ideas . So this one family could leave with more than eighty competing little ideas from one morning at church! And if we begin to add in youth group, small group, and a midweek service, the number easily dou-bles again . If family members read the Bible and have quiet times with any regularity, it might double yet again . And if they listen to Christian radio in the car or watch Christian television at home, the number might double once more . It’s possible that this one family is bombarded with more than one thousand little ideas every week explaining what it means to be a Christian . No wonder when the par-ents ask their kids, “So what did you learn?” the answer goes some-thing like this: (Silence .) “Ummm . . .” (More silence .) “Ummm . . .” (Still more silence .) “Ummm . . .”



MorE InforMatIon = LEss CLarIty

We have bombarded our people with too many competing little ideas, and the result is a church with more information and less clarity than perhaps ever before . But the church is not alone in its predicament . Businesses also get distracted with lots of little ideas and forget the Big Idea . Many marketplace leaders are relearning the importance of the Big Idea in regard to advertising . It was a multimillion-dol-lar sock-puppet ad during Super Bowl XXXIV that epitomized the absurdity of the advertising during the dot-com bubble . This same era brought us commercials with cowboys herding cats, singing chimps, and a talking duck — all great entertainment, but they didn’t convey a thing about the brands they represented . Brand consultants Bill Schley and Carl Nichols Jr ., in their book, Why Johnny Can’t Brand: Rediscovering the Lost Art of the Big Idea, tell us this type of advertising is not effective branding . Schley and Nichols exhort companies to redefine their products in terms of a single, mesmerizing “Domi-nant Selling Idea .” They go on to explain that somewhere along the way, “Johnny” forgot the basics of revealing the Big Idea in an easy, everyday way that cements a brand as top dog in the hearts and minds of consumers without resort-ing to puffery and shallow glitz . What are businesses learning? That “more” results in less clarity . (And less money!)

Don’t misunderstand — this is not a rant against entertainment or churches that are entertaining . I actually think churches should be more entertaining . But that’s a chapter for another book . This is a rant against churches (and businesses) that don’t discipline

We have bombarded our people with too

many competing little ideas, and the result is a church with more information and less clarity than perhaps

ever before.


Part 1: Little Ideas or the Big Idea?1�

themselves to create experiences that convey and challenge people with one Big Idea at a time . Why? Because the lack of clarity that we give our people impedes the church’s ability to accomplish the mission of Jesus . “More” results in less clarity .

Dr . Haddon Robinson, in his classic book Biblical Preaching, recognizes the simple truth that more is less and challenges teach-ing pastors to communicate with crystal clarity “a single idea .” He says, “People in the pew complain almost unanimously that the ser-mons often contain too many ideas .”1 Robinson is right on . And it is good news that people are complaining . Their complaints about too many ideas tell us that people in the pew want clarity, direction, and guidance in how to live out the mission of Jesus Christ . We can no longer afford to waste another Sunday allowing people to leave confused about what to do next . So let the change begin! But this change can’t be relegated only to the preaching . It also must happen in the teaching of children, students, adults, and families and in the overall experience of church life . How? The Big Idea . And it is one Big Idea at a time that brings clarity to the confusion that comes from too many little ideas .

MorE InforMatIon = LEss aCtIon

In 1960 when John F . Kennedy was elected president, more than $20 million was spent on the presidential campaign for the very first time . The money was spent so the candidates could deliver their political ideas to the people in a compelling way through the new medium of television . Every year since then, more and more money has been spent to better communicate each candidate’s politi-cal ideology, with the amount increasing more than 400 percent to $880 million in 2004 . You would think that with all that money

It is one Big Idea at a time that brings clarity to the confusion that

comes from too many little ideas.



and all those ideas being communicated in every imaginable for-mat, people would be better informed and more convinced to take action and cast their vote for the candidate of their choice . Wrong! More has resulted in less action . Although the 2004 presidential election saw a slight increase in voter participation from the 2000 election, overall, there has been a forty-year trend of declining voter participation in national elections for U .S . president . Why? In Thomas E . Patterson’s book The Vanishing Voter, he asks, “What draws people to the campaign and what keeps them away?” He dis-covered after the 2000 election that despite almost a billion dollars spent to communicate lots of ideas, when surveyed on election day, a majority of people flunked a series of twelve questions seeking to ascertain whether they knew the candidates’ positions on prime issues such as gun registration, defense spending, tax cuts, abor-tion, school vouchers, prescription drug coverage, offshore oil drill-ing, and affirmative action . Patterson concludes, “I don’t believe that voters are more apathetic than they were 40 years ago . I think they are more confused than they were 40 years ago .”2 Sure I vote, but do you know one of the primary reasons I vote? It’s so I can say, “I voted .” Seldom have I gone to the polls with a strong conviction that I really knew the ideology of each candidate . The main feeling I have in connection with voting is confusion, and confusion does not produce positive action .

Around the Ferguson household you can see how “more” results in less action . Having friends over for the evening usually means a scramble to clean up the house and get things presentable for com-pany . So my wife, Sue, and I start barking out orders to the kids: “Vacuum the family room, dust the railings, put away your coat, pick up your shoes, shut the door to your bedroom . . .” What hap-pens next? Usually they stand there staring at us and say, “What?” They are willing to help, but after our barrage of requests, they are overwhelmed and do nothing . Now, my wife says that just the boys and I have this problem and that girls can multitask . Maybe . But I



think it’s another example of the fact that more results in less action . Experience has taught me that if I want the kids to get something done, I’m farther ahead to give them one task, ask them to check in with me once it’s finished, then give them the next task . This is the Big Idea approach . It provides clarity and produces action .

I know that as church leaders we can’t control the media and the barrage of information that comes at our people — and we don’t want to control it . But what we do want is to challenge our people with the truth of God’s Word and insist that it be lived out mission-ally . When we contribute to the bombardment of little ideas, we are implicitly telling our people that not all of God’s truth has to

be accompanied by obedi-ent action . We are implicitly telling our people that just because they hear the truth doesn’t mean they necessar-ily have to live it out . We are telling our people that what is really important is saying it and not doing it .

onE BIg IdEa = MorE CLarIty and aCtIon

I was in a graduate class when I heard the Big Idea explained for the first time . The professor, Jim Pluddeman, challenged my classmates and me by saying that the Bible was written to be understood and applied . He said, “The effective teacher is like a person who takes a strong rope, ties one end around the big ideas of Scripture, ties the other end around the major themes of life, and then through the power of the Spirit struggles to pull the two together .” I was just beginning to understand that accomplishing the mission of Jesus would mean focusing on one Big Idea, not trying to juggle compet-ing little ideas .

Jesus did not confuse people with a lot of little ideas . Instead, he presented one Big Idea with a clear call to action: “As Jesus was

We must challenge our people with the truth of God’s Word and

insist that it be lived out missionally.


CHaPtEr 1: No More Christians! 21

walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew . They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen . ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men .’ At once they left their nets and followed him” (Matt . 4:18 – 20) .

I can’t help but notice that Jesus didn’t say to Peter and Andrew, “Come, be Christians .” Here’s how Don Everts puts it in a terrific little book titled Jesus with Dirty Feet:

Jesus was not a Christian.He never asked anyone to become a Christian,

never built a steepled building,never drew up a theological treatise,never took an offering,never wore religious garments,never incorporated for tax purposes.

He simply called people to follow him.That’s it.That, despite its simplicity, is it.He called people to follow him. . . .It is never more

than Jesus’ call: “Follow me”and a response: dropping familiar netsand following, in faith,this sandaled Jewish man.

It is never more than that.Two thousand years of words can do nothingto the simple, basic reality of Christianity:Those first steps

taken by those two brothers.Peter and Andrew’s theologywas as pure as it gets:

Jesus said, “Follow me.” And we did.3



When Jesus met someone for the first time, he challenged them with one Big Idea: “Follow me .” A Big Idea that was simple but not easy . If Peter and Andrew were asked, “What did Jesus teach you today?” there is no way they would respond like this: (Silence .) “Ummm . . .” (More silence .) “Ummm . . .” (Still more silence .) “Ummm . . .” And if they did, it would not be because they were con-fused and didn’t understand, but rather because they were stunned at the boldness and size of Jesus’ request . This Big Idea was very clear, and the call to action could not be misunderstood . The sim-plicity and clarity of that Big Idea, “Follow me,” was what catalyzed a movement of Christ followers into action . And these Christ fol-lowers knew what was expected of them and would do anything and everything, including trade their very lives, to accomplish the mission of Jesus .

What about “deeper teaching”? That is what the rich young ruler wanted . He came to Jesus and began to explain that he already knew the commandments — “Do not murder, do not commit adul-tery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother” (Mark 10:19) — and that he had obeyed these commands since he was a boy . He wanted more . He wanted

a midweek service . He wanted graduate-level teaching . With clarity and simplicity, Jesus challenged him with one Big Idea when he said, “One thing you lack . . . . Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven . Then come, follow me”

(Mark 10:21) . The message was clear . It was a call to action . It was a Big Idea that was simple but not easy .

What would happen if we challenged people in the same way? What if we gave people one clear and simple Big Idea and asked them

When Jesus met someone for the first time, he challenged

them with one Big Idea: “Follow me.”


CHaPtEr 1: No More Christians! 23

to put it into action? That is exactly what we have been attempting to do at Community Christian Church and the NewThing Network for the last several years . Every week, we give all of our people of every age and at every location one Big Idea and ask them to put it into action . The challenge is simple and clear — but never easy . That’s the Big Idea .

Recently we were in the middle of a Big Idea series titled “Get in the Game” for the adults and “U Got Game” for our Student Com-munity and Kids’ City . Kids’ City puts every Big Idea into one con-cise statement, and this time it was “God uses his teams’ offering to change the world .” It was a powerful series . I received the following email from a mom in our church:

From: Kirsten

sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 8:18 PM

to: Dave Ferguson

subject: “U Got Game” Big Idea

I just wanted to let you know that my kids really, really got a lot out

of this week’s large group time in Kids’ City. It made such an im-

pact on them to know where their offering money goes every week.

Each week when they get their allowance on Saturday, 15 percent

automatically goes with them to church, but they’ve never really

understood where that money goes. (I guess I haven’t been very

effective at explaining what “giving back to God” means!) Anyway,

when they came home this week after experiencing the Big Idea,

they both went in and emptied their piggy banks into the offer-

ing bags they made and said, “We have to give it all to church.

There are orphans in Rwanda that don’t have homes. We have to

help those kids get a home!” Never mind that we talk about “poor

people” around this house all the time, but for whatever reason

they “got it” in a way they never had, thanks to the way you pre-

sented it in Kids’ City.

Thanks!

Kirsten



That same week another mom stopped me in Starbucks and said, “Dave, I have to tell you what happened with my boys — it was the

most amazing thing . We were going out to get an early start on Christmas shopping at the mall . When we got to the door of the store, there was a Salva-tion Army bell ringer with his red kettle and bell trying to get donations . I didn’t think much of it . Sometimes I give and sometimes I don’t — you know . This time I didn’t . But when I got inside the store, I couldn’t find my two boys . I

looked around for them, and then I saw them outside next to the Salvation Army bell ringer emptying their pockets, giving every-thing they had . My two boys gave away their entire allowance! I was pleased but shocked . When they caught up with me, I asked them why they did that . They told me, ‘Mom, isn’t that what they were talking about at church?’ It was amazing .” That’s the power of the Big Idea .

I asked Jen Pedley how the Big Idea impacted her . Here’s what she said:

The Big Idea was the first time in my life that God’s Word applied

to my everyday, ordinary life. It helped me in a practical, “meet

you where you are and don’t worry, I’ll still love you” way. No one

had ever spoken so clearly about what it meant to be a Christ fol-

lower (I mean, come on, everyone in my hometown claimed to be

a “Christian,” but I saw firsthand how much that really meant in

many people’s lives), why you would even want to live this way,

and how to do it.

I never heard the Word of God speak to me personally until

coming to CCC. I never saw the point until then. Big Idea teaching

Every week, we give all of our people of

every age and at every location one Big Idea and ask them to put

it into action. The challenge is simple and clear — but never easy.

That’s the Big Idea.



touches on so many basic truths that even though I had gone to

churches my whole life, I had never heard before. When you put

God’s Word into where people are at today — whew, I was blown

away. I still am.

Jen came to Community Christian Church in 2000 and soon made a commitment to be a Christ follower . She was baptized, began doing life with a small group of believers, and joined one of our vocal teams . In 2004 she and her husband, Ken, packed up their kids, leaving behind a job and home to move with a group of people from Chicago to the Detroit area to start 2|42 Community Church . Why? They were committed to the Big Idea of selling all they had and following Jesus to accomplish his mission .

tHE PowEr of tHE BIg IdEa

So what if we took that same trip to church, and instead of hearing lots of competing little ideas, our whole family was taught only one Big Idea?

One Big Idea is displayed on the church website .One Big Idea is on the cover of the church bulletin you are

handed at the door .One Big Idea is projected on the screen as you listen to the pre-

lude music while taking your seat .One Big Idea is introduced in the welcome by the worship

leader .One Big Idea is the focus of the opening prayer .One Big Idea is the theme of song 1 in the worship service .One Big Idea is supported by the Scripture reading by the

worship leader .

“The Big Idea was the first time in my life that

God’s Word applied to my everyday,

ordinary life.”



One Big Idea is the theme of song 2 in the worship service .One Big Idea is at the heart of a secular song used as the special

music .One Big Idea and how you can understand it further in a small

group is the only announcement .One Big Idea is explained in the first — and only — point of the

sermon .One Big Idea is reinforced through a video .One Big Idea is the theme of song 3 in the worship service .One Big Idea is the focus of the closing prayer .One Big Idea can be explored even more deeply by going to the

“next steps” table and picking up a recommended reading list .

One Big Idea and how to have a conversation with your kids on this topic is the theme of the Kids’ City handout given to parents .

One Big Idea is the central topic of discussion at small group during the week .

One Big Idea is the focus of the prayer time during small group .

One Big Idea is reinforced by a phone call (by your request) from the teaching pastor at the end of the week .

(Silence .) “Ummm” would not be your response if you were asked, “So what did you learn?” What the church needs is one unmistakable Big Idea . A crystal-clear Big Idea that calls everyone to act on the Jesus’ mission .

So why does the church in the United States have 247 million Christians and not nearly enough Christ followers? And why is it that we have access to the best and most thoroughly thought-through theology in all of history yet still aren’t gaining ground in accomplishing the mission of Jesus? Could it be that we have forgotten the Big Idea and gotten lost in too many little ideas? Is it because the church of Jesus Christ has not challenged people the



way Jesus challenged people — with one Big Idea, simple and clear: “Follow me”?

I no longer call myself a Christian . I no longer try to convert people to Christianity . It’s not that the title is wrong but that as a label it has come to mean something far different than what it means to follow Jesus . Being a Christian has been reduced to the expectation of niceness . How pathetic . How boring . How easy . How insignificant . And even that expectation of niceness doesn’t have to be fulfilled, because the greater expectation is hypocrisy — the practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not live out . Who would want to be associated with that?

I am a Christ follower . I follow Jesus step by step as his Spirit moves me in his commu-nity called the church . When Jesus steps, I follow . When Jesus speeds up, I increase my pace . When Jesus slows down, I slow down too . The direction, the speed, and the ultimate destination of my life are determined by keeping in step with Jesus’ Spirit . Simple . Clear . Not easy!

I no longer call myself a Christian. I no longer try to convert people to

Christianity. I am a Christ follower. I follow Jesus

step by step as his Spirit moves me in his

community called the church.


Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Introduction: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 The Life-Giving Power of Self-Examination

1. Love Strengthens Every Relationship . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 The Leader’s Heart

2. Lifelong Learning Expands Our Horizons . . . . . . . . . 41 The Leader’s Mind

3. Attentive Listening Informs Wise Decisions . . . . . . . . 59 The Leader’s Ears

4. Clear Vision Sees What Lies Ahead . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 The Leader’s Eyes

5. Affi rming Words Bring Blessing and Energy . . . . . . . . 99 The Leader’s Mouth

6. Humble Ser vice Reveals Jesus’ Presence . . . . . . . . . . 119 The Leader’s Hands

7. Laughter Sustains Our Sanity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 The Leader’s Funny Bone

8. Understanding and Harnessing Our Sexual Desires . . 151 The Leader’s Libido

9. Bearing the Yoke of Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 The Leader’s Back

Concluding Th oughts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Discussion Questions and Prayer Prompters . . . . . . . . . . 181 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 Suggested Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

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Understanding and Harnessing Our Sexual DesiresThe Leader’s Libido

chapter 8



understanding and harnessing our sexual desires

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Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man com-mits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

— 1 Co rin thi ans 6:18 – 20

May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer — may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be cap-tivated by her love.

— Proverbs 5:18 – 19

It was a hard year. I received a one-two-three punch that knocked the spiritual wind out of me.

Punch one came when a dear brother, who had been in a pastors accountability group with me for many years, left his wife, children, and ministry for a woman in his church. He shocked the members of our group with a whole series of choices that turned his life upside down. Sadly, he never came to us early in the process, when his heart was wandering toward another woman. He told us after the damage had been done, the sexual lines had been crossed, and his ministry had been compromised. My initial response was anger. Our pastors group prayed with him and challenged him to seek restoration with his wife. But he rejected our council. We continue to pray for him and seek to keep the door of our lives open to him.

A few months later, I was hit with the second blow. I received a call from another pastor friend. “Can I come by your office to talk? I need to come over right now.” I cleared my calendar for the morn-ing. He walked into my office, sat in a chair, made no eye contact, and pensively looked at the floor. Finally, he spoke. “I have sinned. It could cost me everything. I don’t even know how it happened, but I have sinned.” I prayed for him and then listened. He explained that he had become involved with a woman, entered an emotional affair, and finally had a sexual encounter. When the woman found out he was a pastor, she blew the whistle. Again, I went through a strong emo-tional response. But this time, I was not angry. I was numb, confused, and filled with despair. Sadness came over me. I trusted this leader



the leader’s libido

153

like a brother. I did not see this coming. I was brokenhearted for his wife, children, church, and for him. I mourned the effect his decisions would have on so many people. One bright light in this situation was that he committed to a process of confession and reconciliation.

The knockout punch came when I heard the accusations about Ted Haggard, president of the National Association of Evangelicals. Reporters were talking about “accusations” of his involvement with a male prostitute and illegal drug use. It seemed far-fetched, almost too bizarre. But something inside me broke. I had never met this pas-tor, but my gut told me that when the smoke cleared, things would be even worse than initially reported. This wasn’t some kind of pro-phetic insight but feelings based on what I had been experiencing with my two pastor friends. I was growing painfully aware of the sinister power of sexual temptation.

Once the confessions came and things were in the light, I entered unfamiliar emotional territory. I was not angry, and I was not sad. I was filled with fear and profoundly introspective. Leader after leader was shipwrecking their lives through sexual compromise, and I had a sober awareness that I was not beyond temptation. I found myself scrutinizing my own ability to self-deceive, my propensity toward sin, how I can rationalize poor choices, and how I can live a double life if I’m not very careful.

Anger came when I realized my first friend was leaving his family and ministry for another woman. Sadness engulfed me as I walked with my second friend through his time of struggle. Sobering fear gripped me when the news broke on Ted Haggard. The fear has not gone away. I hope it never does.

Symptoms CheckMy Desires Need Harnessing❏ I find myself letting people in my church meet emo-

tional needs that should be met only by my spouse.

continued ➮




154

The Power of the MindI can’t believe that three decades have slipped by since I grew up on Santa Barbara Street in Fountain Valley, California. As I write these words, I sit two thousand miles and a lifetime away from my child-hood home. Yet at the speed of thought, I can close my eyes and find myself standing in our front yard. I can see the juniper shrubs, my best friend’s house across the street, and the decorative giant Zs (one frontward and one backward) on our garage door.

I can see the hallway of our home — the strip of carpet my dad and mom made us run back and forth on when one of our feet fell asleep during dinner. It was torturous running on a prickly foot, but three or four times up and down the hall always did the trick. I can even smell the homemade chocolate fudge my mom made when we had company over. The scent still lingers, wafting through the storehouse of my mind.

❏ I view movies, TV shows, internet sites, magazines,

or other sources of visual stimulation in an effort

to “meet my sexual needs.” If these secret behaviors

were to become public, I would be embarrassed and

ashamed, and it might even compromise my ministry.

❏ I have created a fantasy world in my mind where I

engage in sexual sin. I would never do these things in

the real world, but I find myself playing out mental

scenarios I know are wrong.

❏ I am living a double life. On the one hand, I call

people to moral purity and holiness. But in my per-

sonal life, I engage in the very behaviors I condemn

publicly.

❏ When the topic of setting relational boundaries

comes up, I get defensive because I don’t want to face

the fact that I have a habit of crossing boundaries.




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The mind’s power is staggering. It can transport us virtually any-where in a flash. What we do with our minds, where we go, what we focus on, is critical for leaders. The mind can be a glorious place of hope, dreams, joy, and vision. It can also be a prison of lust, anxiety, and fear.

It’s up to us.Each of us can choose to harness our thought life and use it for

God-honoring activities, or we can let it run wild and suffer the consequences. Like a spoiled child in a chocolate shop, if we let our thought lives consume whatever they want, we will end up ill, sitting in a pile of candy wrappers, wondering why we feel so sick when everything tasted so good.

Leaders don’t have the luxury of living this way. Though every leader has weaknesses and struggles with sin, we are called to offer the full force of our mental capabilities to God. As we nurture our thought lives, we discover what it means to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).

Both leaders who are married and those who are single face this challenge. In a sex-saturated culture, we must guard our minds. This is the first line of defense. A leader whose outer world is squeaky clean can still allow the world of the mind to be perverse. The same mind that can catapult us back to a childhood home can create vivid sexual scenarios that dishonor God. Healthy church leaders inspect their thought lives and make sure they are seeking to live in holiness even in the hidden compartments of their minds.

Doctor’s InsightYou May Not See It, but It’s There

With a knowing look in his eyes, Dr. Dekkinga asked, “When did you notice the first problem with your skin?” I thought about it and said, “When I was thirty-six years old.” Jack just nodded his head to confirm what he suspected.

continued ➮




156

The mind is a battlefield. If the enemy can dominate here, he can infiltrate, poison, and destroy every area of our lives. I discov-ered this struggle early in my life as a follower of Jesus. I was a stu-dent seeking to live out my faith on the campus of Orange Coast College. Every day was a challenge. I found my mind wandering places it should not have gone. There were attractive women in all of my classes and everywhere on the campus. Since we had endless summer, many wore beach clothes, and this only compounded the problem.

He explained that the kind of skin problems I have, the ones

due to overexposure to the sun, tend to pop up about twenty years

after the damage is done. He was exactly right. I had spent long

days in the sun all my summers up to my sophomore year of high

school. But for two decades, there was no sign of trouble. My skin

was fine. There were no dry spots, recurring sores, or any indi-

cation of the serious consequences of my marathon days at the

beach. Jack told me this is common.

If you had asked me, “Did all the years you spent in the

California sun damage your skin?” I would have told you that I

had gotten away with it. But I would have been wrong. The dam-

age was there, and I was going to have to pay the proverbial piper.

It’s just that I was on a deferred payment program.

Leaders who battle with hidden sexual sin face the same real-

ity. They might feel they have it covered up and that no one will

ever know. Their private thought lives or viewing habits are just

that — private! But just like skin cancer, they always come to the

surface. The longer we ignore them, the worse things become.




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I wanted to devote my mind to higher purposes. But I had dif-ficulty thinking about anything except women. I had been reading the gospels and was struck by how Jesus had battled the temptations of Satan by quoting Scripture (Matt. 4:1 – 11; Luke 4:1 – 13). If my

Help from My FriendsWhat Helps You Keep Your Motives and Life Pure?My model for morality and integrity is my dad. He is a man of

deep convictions and personal character. I have had regular con-versations with him concerning what it means to live a moral life

over the years. He constantly challenges me and provides a model of

impeccable character.My wife, Claudia, and I are open books with each other. If there

is ever a question concerning any value, decision, or conduct, we ask

each other.My personal motivation is my two sons, whom I deeply admire and

adore. When I’m tempted to go down the wrong road morally, I often

ask myself, “How will this decision impact the lives of my sons?” This

is a huge motivation for purity!My board of elders meets regularly with me to ask the tough

questions. This is not always comfortable, but it’s extremely valuable.My congregation is fully aware of my life. I am open with them

concerning my values and integrity issues. I have never pretended to

be perfect and will readily share my failures, struggles, temptations,

and weaknesses. I share with them my personal choices concerning

values and ethics. — Wes Dupin, Senior Pastor, Daybreak Community Church,

Hudsonville, MI




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Savior used the Bible as a weapon against the attacks of the enemy, I would give it a try.

I decided to memorize a few verses from the book of 1 Peter. Each time my mind wandered, I would meditate on these verses. The first week, I found myself walking around the campus constantly mut-tering, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world . . .” Honestly, it didn’t help much.

I stuck with my commitment. If I was going to be a leader in the church, if I was going to live for God, I wanted my mind to be under his control and not running wild. So each time I found myself fixat-ing on the lovely ladies of OC, I went back to 1 Peter. As one verse became part of my thinking and was rooted in my heart, I would add another.

To give you a sense of how much the battle raged and my eyes and heart wandered, over that year of college I memorized all five chap-ters of 1 Peter and also the book of Haggai. I did this not because I was disciplined but because I was desperate. At first, when my mind wandered to the wrong places, my response was mechanical. I would begin at 1 Peter, chapter one, verse one. I would rattle off the words as fast as I could. Even this remedial approach was helpful. Some of my lust-filled moments subsided, and I thought more about God’s Word. But with time, something more substantial happened. The truth and power of God’s Word filled and dominated my thought life. I slowly stopped dwelling on thoughts that dishonored God and poisoned my view of women. I began to reflect on the goodness of God, the value of people, the truth I was learning. I began praying for people on campus. My mind was being shaped by God’s values and not the values of the world.

Through the year, something amazing happened. The battle sub-sided. It did not go away, but the intensity lessened. My mind focused, more and more, on thoughts that honor God. Believe me, it was not a quick fix. But with time, something inside of me changed. Close to three decades later, I still turn to meditating on Scripture when my eyes and mind wander where they should not be. Every time I do, the truth of God’s Word brings power in the spiritual battle.

Memorizing passages of the Bible and reciting them might seem old-fashioned. Some see this as a discipline for grade-school kids try-ing to get stars on a chart in their Sunday school classroom. I disagree.




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I believe the best way to practice preventive care of our souls, when it comes to sexual temptation, is to saturate our minds with God’s Word. Meditating on Scripture is a cleansing process, and at any time, we can draw on portions of the Bible we have memorized.

The Wisdom of Setting BoundariesAnother way to keep from falling into sexual sin is by setting clear and God-honoring boundaries. Wise leaders understand that the most benign of relationships can become a problem if you don’t set

Doctor’s InsightPreventive Care

As I spoke with Dr. John Albrecht, my dentist, he began talking about the importance of preventive care. John explained that in the 1960s, a team from the University of Michigan had done studies on periodontal disease (gum disease) and learned that the primary cause was bacterial infection. At the time, there were relatively few dental hygienists. Most dentists would do a quick ten- to fifteen-minute cleaning of the teeth but would not address tartar under the gums.

Once the cause of periodontal disease was identified, preventive measures could be taken. Most dental hygienists now extensively clean and scrape the teeth at each appointment. They get under the gums and remove tarter so bacteria can’t cling to it and attack the gums. Dentists encourage thorough brushing, but they know this cleans only about 60 percent of the tooth surface. So they edu-cate patients on how to f loss and clean the other 40 percent. When patients enter the preventive-care process, dental health increases. When they refuse to do their part, problems grow.



clear physical, emotional, and relational boundaries. This is some-thing I gave a lot of thought early on in my ministry training.

The assignment was simple. Write a case study on some aspect of relationships in ministry. Each of us would present our papers the next time our seminary colloquy group met. I decided to address the issue of boundaries in ministry. As a young man doing ministry with high school students, I had established some boundaries that I found helpful, and I decided to discuss them in my case study.

Two weeks later, we met to present our cases. I had worked hard to list my boundaries and reasons for establishing them. I felt good about my paper. I really believed my presentation would be helpful and well received by the members of my colloquy group.

I was wrong.I began by addressing the reality that all who serve in the church or

in any Chris tian ministry face temptation. I made it clear that people in leadership roles have the responsibility to take great care not to fall to sexual temptation, and that we are also called to “avoid even the appearance of evil.” The group members seemed resistant to these concepts, and their eyes let me know that they were not with me.

Then I presented the boundaries I had established in my youth ministry. First, I would never meet one-on-one with any of the young women in the youth group unless my wife or a church secretary was within earshot. The group members looked at me with skepticism. Next, I explained that I was careful not to be overly physical with the young women in the youth group. In particular, I told them that when I hugged the girls, I would do so with one arm, from the side, with what I had come to call a “buddy hug.” I avoided the frontal hug. At this point, the group was glaring at me, but I pressed on. Apparently, my final boundary was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I told them that I would never drop off a girl from youth group last, but I would go out of the way to drop a girl off first so that I was never in the car alone with any of the girls in the youth group.

At this point, one of the members of my colloquy group launched into me. “That is just ridiculous! You have got to be kidding!”

I didn’t get the reasoned and thoughtful group discussion I had hoped for. Instead, the group members castigated me for being so rigid. They explained that I was entirely out of line and that my boundaries would actually get in the way of my ministry.


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I looked to the professor, hoping for support. He focused on me with great concern in his eyes, chose his words carefully, and said, “I think you are afraid of your own sexuality.”

I paused, thought long and hard, and said, “You better believe I am! I’m terrified of it!”

The silence was palpable.Finally, one of the guys in the group spoke in a scolding way. “I

am married, but my best friend happens to be a woman other than my wife. She is a fellow student here at the seminary. We spend time together one-on-one. I feel comfortable hugging her, and I don’t see any problem with this.” As I listened to him, I had a flashback to the first time I’d seen him on campus with his “best friend.” I’d actually thought she was his wife and was shocked when I discovered she was not. It was clear to me that he was deeply infatuated with this woman and was drawing unhealthy attention from her.

Now I was ticked off.I said, “Let me tell all of you something. In twenty years, I will still

be in ministry. My boundaries might get in the way of some things, but they will also protect me from all kinds of pitfalls.”

Two decades later, I am still in ministry. I also have a set of bound-aries for my relationships with women, and they are even more rigid. If you were to ask me if I am still afraid of my sexuality, I would put it a little more gently than I did twenty years ago, but I would still say, “Yes, I am.”


161

Help from My FriendsHow Do You Establish Boundaries?As a woman, my guideline is not to be alone with a man —

especially a married man. I also keep appropriate boundaries —

spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Even if I think it is not a

problem, I try to avoid the potential for a problem.

continued ➮



At Corinth Church, we address boundaries with our staff mem-bers. We have guidelines for how we relate to other staff members and people in the congregation. Here are some of the boundaries that are part of the staff culture:

• When a staff member meets with a person of the opposite sex, it needs to be in a room with a window or the door must remain open.

• Staff members can’t meet after hours with a person of the opposite sex unless there are others in the building.

• Staff members may not meet one-on-one with a person of the opposite sex off church grounds.

• Generally, staff members do not drive in a car alone with a person of the opposite sex. (Obviously they can drive in groups or help someone in an emergency.)

No pastor or leader at Corinth would go out to lunch with a per-son of the opposite sex, either from the staff or the congregation. We feel this looks and feels too much like a date. Our staff and church board know that these boundaries are strict and that they can occa-sionally lead to complexities for travel and scheduling meetings. We also know these boundaries can’t be absolutely rigid, that they are general guidelines. But we believe the benefits of clear boundaries far outweigh the drawbacks. And by God’s grace, we have never faced a situation in which a staff member has ended up in a compromising relationship with someone on staff or with a church member.

When I go to a good movie, but there is a s

cene that I sense I

do not need to be seeing, I close my eyes (and sometimes my ears!)

as the scene approaches. Occasionally, I j

ust have to leave what I

thought would be a good movie. Wrong images and words stick like

barbs in my mind. I try to avoid the fi rst contact. This goes fo

r every

form of media. — Nancy Grisham, PhD, Evangelism Leader, Livin’ Ignited

162




I have friends in ministry whom I respect who feel the boundaries our church has set are too strict and would not work in their church cultures. My counsel is that they think through what is appropri-ate for their contexts, but that they set clear boundaries that protect their leaders, congregational members, and the name of Jesus.

The Power of AccountabilityAlong with meditating on Scripture and setting clear boundar-ies, wise leaders embrace accountability. This involves courage. It demands vulnerability. And it can save our lives.

A church leader asked if I could do him a favor. He said, “When I travel, I stay in hotels . . . alone.” He was having a hard time making eye contact but pressed on. “I . . . well . . . I have been watching movies that a Chris tian leader should not watch. I don’t want to. I know it’s wrong. But I am having a hard time stopping.”

I asked him, “How can I help you?”“Maybe, before I travel, I could tell you, and you could pray for

me. Then when I get home, I could give you a report.”I told him I though he was very wise, and I committed to hold him

accountable for two months. The next couple of trips, he resisted the temptation to watch inappropriate movies. When we hit the two-month mark, I asked if he felt he needed me to be the one to keep him accountable over the long haul. “No, I have a couple of close guy friends who would be great at this. I just came to you first because I knew you would not look down on me.”


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Help from My FriendsHow Do You Seek Purity While Traveling?When I travel in the West, I usually request that my hosts not put

me in a hotel, unless I am traveling with my wife. This is because I

fi nd that in the West, even normal TV is often unedifying. Because I continued ➮




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The beauty of accountability is that we can tailor it to our needs. When we find a brother or sister we trust, we can ask them to keep us accountable in a very specific way. If our struggle is emotional attachment to someone in our ministry, we can have them pray for us and ask us if we are being careful to keep clear boundaries with this person. If our struggle is the hidden world of lust, we can invite an accountability partner to support us in prayer as well as ask us if we are keeping our thoughts heading in the right direction. If we are tempted with internet pornography, we can have a monthly report of all our internet activity sent to an accountability partner. Whatever

am very tired when I fi nish a day of ministry, I tend to put on the

TV

and watch for too long. If I must stay in a h

otel, I usually ask for a

roommate so that I will not be alone when I am tired after the battles

of ministry. Generally, I prefer to stay in hom

es. The added advantage

of staying in homes is that when I am in a foreign c

ulture, I like as

many opportunities as possible

to identify with the people and get to

know them. I know many preachers do not like the t

ime spent talk-

ing. But I think it helps me get closer to

people, and this helps me

minister more effectively among them.

— Ajith Fernando, Director, Youth for Christ, Sri Lanka

I’ve Got Your Back

Serious Accountability

I am part of two pastors support groups. These are not

groups that meet to complain and gossip. They are groups

where we get in each other’s faces, share our lives deeply, pray




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our need, a trusted friend who asks us the hard questions as well as encourages and prays for us is an amazing gift.

The Goodness of SexualityChris tians should have great sex lives. In the context of marriage, of course. God created male and female and declared them “very good.” The picture is compelling. A man and a woman in a beautiful garden — paradise! They were naked. They were not ashamed. God invited them to “be fruitful and multiply.” When God created men and women, he intended for them to experience sexual intimacy. It is a good gift.

Chris tian leaders who want to honor Jesus need to embrace the goodness of God’s creative plan. We need to celebrate the wonder, mystery, and passion of godly sex. For too long we have abdicated the realm of sexuality to the world. No more! It is time for God’s people to recapture the world of sexuality.

Married leaders should make their sexual lives a high priority. Single leaders should live in sexual purity but still bless and cel-ebrate the goodness of sex when it is expressed in the covenant relationship of a married man and woman. There are far too many church leaders who have decided that their sex lives will never be life-giving, joyful parts of their marriages, and they have become

passionately, and extend honest accountability. In one of the

groups, we discussed internet pornography. As we expressed

the challenges of staying pure in the world of our minds and

avoiding this visual cesspool, we decided that each of us would

subscribe to an internet reporting program that keeps a list of

every site we access and then sends a monthly report to some-

one else in the group.




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places of hidden pain and silent anger. When a ministry couple fails to embrace the goodness of their sexual relationship, it creates a rift between the husband and wife where the enemy of our souls can drive a wedge, creating a breeding ground for sexual temptation and indiscretion.

Most of the time, when a godly Chris tian man or woman begins crossing lines in the area of sexuality, it has to do with an emotional need. They feel far from their spouse. The rigors of ministry are tak-ing a toll. The physical and emotional needs they carry deep inside begin to surface. Then someone comes along who will meet their emotional need. They are drawn to this person, first, because they “care about me.” Once the emotional link has been established, sexual temptation begins to grow.

There is an amazing passage in Proverbs that addresses the good-ness of sexuality, the call to fidelity, and the danger of sexual temp-tation. Read this passage closely. Catch the imagery of water as a picture of sexual intimacy:

Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.A loving doe, a graceful deer — may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be captivated by her love.Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths.

— Proverbs 5:15 – 21

The writer of Proverbs gives a series of warnings in the early sec-tion of chapter five. He calls us to avoid sexual temptation, to stay




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far away from those who seek to draw us in. He goes on to talk about the wisdom of receiving discipline and listening to the wisdom of others. We are called to ferocious fidelity and warned of the dangers of adultery. Yet in the middle of this serious caution comes a celebra-tion of intimacy and sexual fulfillment.

All through the Bible there is a call for sexual celebration. Within the marriage covenant, there should be sexual blessing. Just as we are called to bless with our words, we are also called to bless with our bodies. Our genitalia, specifically, are to be fountains of overflowing blessing. The breasts, vagina, and penis are all part of the celebra-tion of one-flesh intimacy. Romance and sexual intercourse are gifts from God to his people.

There is a clear sense in Scripture that we are to satisfy our spouses with our bodies. Read the words closely, and for heaven’s sake, don’t be embarrassed! “May her breasts satisfy you always.” The passage could just as unashamedly say, “Let his penis satisfy you always.” I know some will blush when they read these words. Some in God’s family have relegated the realm of sexuality to a low place in life. They have missed the biblical reality that one-flesh sexual intimacy is a gift from their Creator.

When our sexual relationship is one that satisfies and our “foun-tain” is blessed, it leads to captivating love. Chris tian couples who make their sexual lives a priority discover that the emotional and physical desires that God has placed deep in their souls are satisfied. When we drink deeply from the fountain of marital intimacy, we no longer need our waters to be scattered in the streets. When our sex lives are healthy, growing, passionate, fulfilling, the need to look elsewhere drops significantly.

This is not to say that Chris tian leaders who have rich and fulfill-ing sexual relationships with their spouses won’t face temptation. This is also not to say that those who enter into an inappropriate sexual relationship can somehow blame their spouse for not meeting their needs. But nurturing healthy sexual, romantic, and intimate relationships with our spouses will meet many of the needs God has placed inside of us. When we sense deep satisfaction and fulfillment in our sexual lives, we are quicker to recognize the counterfeit offers of the enemy and turn them down.




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Network Building

Talk about It

If you are married, talk with your spouse about your romantic

and sexual relationship. Use some of these questions to get the

conversation started:

1. What are the things I do that make you feel close to

me? What are things I do that make you feel distant

from me?

2. How are we doing in nurturing a healthy romantic

and sexual relationship?

3. How do you feel about the frequency of our sexual

intimacy?

4. What do I do that brings you pleasure when we are

sexually intimate and during intercourse?

5. What do I do that is not pleasing or makes you feel

uncomfortable when we are sexually intimate and

during intercourse?

If your sexual relationship with your spouse is broken or

nonexistent, get help. Talk with a professional who can offer

wisdom and help. When a car breaks down, we see a mechanic.

When our computer crashes, we find someone who can recover

the data. If your sexual relationship has hit a roadblock, don’t

accept where you are. Read a book, talk with a godly leader you

trust, find a couple you respect and ask them to mentor you,

see a counselor. Whatever you do, make sure this part of your

life is healthy and strong.



Contents

Part 1 The Sticky Church Advantage 11

1 Sticky Church 13Why the front door is highly overrated • A parable lots of people know but not many understand • Why stickiness is so important • The purpose and format of this book

2 Who Are These Guys? 18Why it might not matter if your church stinks at marketing • Small leaks, big messes and church growth • Come and see evangelism • The 80 percent factor • Scalability and Slow growth

3 How I Learned about the Importance and Power of Stickiness 23Killing the dream — and why it was one of the best things I ever did • Tools or sheep? • Pastors who don’t like Chris tians • Why marketing too early can actually keep people away

4 Why Stickier Churches Are Healthier Churches 29Why closing the back door can make the front door seem bigger • The tell-tale mark of a raving fan • The high price of bait and switch • How one seeker church made sure no one brought any seekers

Part 2 How Small Groups Change Everything 37

5 Velcroed for Growth 38Why most of our discipleship models don’t work very well • How people grow • Velcroed for growth • Why the New Testament is absolutely silent about small groups

6 How Small Groups Change Everything 44Critical mass — why it’s so important and what it takes to get there • The Holy man myth • The Holy place myth • Why empowerment needs a platform

7 Still More Ways That Small Groups Change Everything 50Why small groups make a church more honest and transparent • Why they always increase the level and practice of spiritual disciplines • The very best gift we can give a child — or teenager

8 Making the Message Memorable: How Sermon-Based Small Groups Made Me a Much Better Preacher 55

A bunch of stuff that didn’t work and the one change that did • The simplest way to increase attention and note taking • Why my sermons are always worth talking about • Four stages of knowledge and why lots of people tend to bail out before they’re finished

6


9 Making the Message Accessible: How Sermon-Based Small Groups Made Us a Much Better Church 62

Reeling in the marginally interested • Why it doesn’t matter why someone joins a group • Why even the unmotivated will spend an hour preparing for their small group • Facilitators and teachers • The death of idiot questions

Part 3 Sermon-Based Small Groups 69 10 Why Some Groups Jell and Some Don’t 70

Why size matters • Comfort zones • The “me too” factor • The magic number when attendance becomes predictably sporadic • Getting the right people in the right group • The difference between Chris tian unity and close friendships • Schooling fish • Why people are like Legos • Why friendly people can leave new people feeling frustrated • New groups for new people • Why dividing to grow might not be such a good idea

11 Flies on the Wall: What Happens When a Sermon-Based Small Group Meets 77

Why there is no such thing as a “typical” sermon-based small group

• Refreshments and personal updates • Why it’s vitally important that everyone answers their homework questions ahead of time • Three types of questions • Why silly questions can be important questions • Why you always want to look at some passages that weren’t mentioned in the sermon

• Prayer • Freedom to digress • Worship • Ser vice projects and socials

12 Overcoming the Time Crunch 85Why most of us have just two time slots to work with • The difference between selling out and adapting wisely • Why cutting the competition is so important • What Henry Ford taught me about small groups • Cut-ting too much too fast can be hazardous to your ministry • Hamstring-ing the competition • Making leadership manageable • Why summer breaks are essential for long term success

13 Determining Your Primary Purpose 93Determining your primary goal • What happens when everyone uses a different measuring rod • Alignment • What we can learn from Wall Street and LA Fitness • Making disciples • Staying healthy • The need for warmth • The dangers of mission creep • Measuring success

14 Entry Points and Escape Routes 100My first small group • The dreaded weasel factor • Entry ramps and escape routes • Why ten weeks is nearly magical • How groups grow deeper • What happens when life happens • What happens when it doesn’t • Align-ing sermon series and small group schedules — why it’s no big deal

15 Why Dividing Groups Is a Dumb Idea 106What most church leaders think • Why those who are actually in a small group see it so differently • Small groups and steroids • Another look at Legos • What the military taught me about small groups • Mayberry in San Diego • Fresh blood • Hiving versus dividing

7

Contents


16 Finding and Developing Leaders 113What to look for • Who to avoid • The best fishing pools • The worst fishing pools • Why you don’t want to ask for volunteers • How to scare off potential leaders

17 Training Leaders 123Why staff members and lay leaders see training so differently • Bite-sized training • Time shifting • Why turning down the intensity won’t harm your leaders or your groups — and why it might help • What every rookie needs to know • The one thing every veteran leader needs to know

18 Why Cho’s Model Didn’t Work in Your Church 129Why most of our small group models don’t work very well • The Korean connection • Coming to America • A nagging question, a surprising answer • Why my parents won’t walk into the Buddhist temple • Prayer Mountain, military coups, and powerful pastors • What a mobile society, extended families, Armenians, and mutts have in common — and what they don’t

19 Before You Start: Five Key Questions 137What a poorly aligned set of tires can teach about vision and ministry

• Who are you trying to reach? • What are you trying to accomplish? • How do these two match up? • The funnel test • Mentoring, education, and apprenticeships • Speed modeling

Acknowledgments 146

Appendixes

1 Writing Great Questions 147

2 Sample Sermon Note Sheet and Study Questions 153

3 Sample Growth Group Covenant 157

4 End of the Quarter Evaluation Form 160

5 Leader Training Topics 162

6 Leader Responsibilities 164

7 Host Responsibilities 166

8 A List of the New Testament “One Anothers” 169

Study Guide: Follow-up Questions for Each Chapter 174

Notes 182

8

Sticky Church


Chapter 4

Why Stickier Churches Are Healthier Churches

We’ve already seen that sticky churches have an advantage when it comes to discipleship. Shutting the back door gives them more time to grow people up to full maturity. But they also have an advantage when it comes to outreach.

Ultimately, a church grows in one of two ways: It gets more people to come through the front door, or it stops losing people out the back door. While most churches give lip ser vice to the importance of both, in reality there’s usually a strong bias toward one or the other — and in most cases it’s not too hard to tell which one it is.

Front-door churches tend to look for the newest and best ways to be noticed and bring people in. If you could be a fly on the wall at an evalu-ation meeting, you’d find most of the discussion centered on how many people came to the big event.

Sticky churches might have great marketing and incredible programs, but if you could be a f ly on the wall at their evaluation meeting, you’d find a different discussion. Instead of celebrating how many people came, the most important measurement would be how many came back.

While many would assume that a church focused on bringing people in the front door would have an advantage when it comes to reaching the lost, that’s not necessarily true over the long haul. Churches that close

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the back door effectively do so by serving their congregations so well that the people don’t want to leave. And happy sheep are incurable word-of-mouth marketers.

Whether it’s the fabulous food at our favorite restaurant, the excite-ment of a great movie, or the life-changing impact of a church ministry, most of us can’t help but tell others when we’ve been well served — and no one needs to tell us to do so.

First VisitsAs we saw earlier, there is a fundamental difference between someone whose first visit to a church is the result of a powerful marketing cam-paign or a special outreach program and someone whose first trip is the result of a friend’s invitation to a regular ser vice.

People who come because of special marketing or programming walk in expecting (or hoping) to be wowed. And if they are, they come back expecting more of the same.

But of course that’s not what they get, because special programs are — well, special. They might attract a lot of people; they might deeply touch everyone who comes. But in the end they fly in the face of one of the most basic laws of retention: Whatever you do to reach people you have to continue to do to keep them.

Let’s think through the experience of an unchurched neighbor who decides to come to a special outreach event. Suppose he likes it well enough to come back the next week. When he does, the exceptional music, the props, the great speaker, or whatever else it was that duly impressed him will almost surely be gone. If it’s the weekend after Christmas or Easter, it’s likely that the senior pastor and all the folks who put it together will be gone also. After all, they’ll need a break. It’s not easy to put on such an extravaganza.

Now compare that with the neighbor whose first visit is the result of a word-of-mouth invitation to a typical weekend ser vice. While he might not be as impressed or wowed by the initial show, he certainly won’t be as disappointed when he shows up a second time. There’s no bait and switch to overcome. If he liked the first visit well enough to come back a second time, he’s likely to come back a third and forth time as well.

But that’s not all. A word-of-mouth church also has some significant advantages when it comes to evangelism, follow-up, and assimilation.

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The Sticky Church Advantage


Natural EvangelismPerhaps the most common form of natural evangelism is what I like to call come-and-see evangelism. It takes place whenever someone shares a spiritual need or interest and we respond by inviting him or her to come to a Bible study, to attend a church ser vice, or just to hang out with some of our Chris tian friends.

It gives that person an opportunity to see Chris tian ity and Chris-tians up close and personal. It’s low-threat. There’s seldom any pressure. It lets spiritual window-shoppers move toward Jesus at a Spirit-led pace. It’s completely natural, not forced.

Let’s face it: Most Chris tians are pretty lame when it comes to closing the deal evangelistically. Whether it’s aggressive confrontational witness-ing or low-key friendship evangelism, lots of us don’t know what to say or do when the questions get tough.

Even when someone is obviously ready to step over the line and follow Jesus, many of us still stutter and stammer or shift into automatic pilot as we spout off a poorly memorized and highly canned response.

I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I am saying that’s the way it is. Even those of us who are extroverts with lots of training in evangelism can get tongue-tied and sweaty palms.

But a sticky church offers the perfect environment for come-and-see evangelism, because while every ser vice is designed to help Chris tians become better Chris tians, it is always done in such a way that non-Chris-tians can understand everything that’s said and takes place.

That makes it much easier for even the most introverted and reserved among us to say with confidence when a friend or coworker expresses a spiritual interest or need, “Why don’t you just come and see?”

Contrast that with the way many of our front-door churches approach evangelism. Though we might think that our special programs make it easier for members to reach out to their not-yet-Chris tian friends, our special outreach programs can actually put some obstacles in their way.

The first is timing. High-powered front-door programs can have the unintended consequence of sending a message that some weekends and programs are for bringing guests — and the rest aren’t.

Years ago my parents had some friends whom they hoped to reach for Christ. After numerous dinner conversations and plenty of time to watch how my folks lived and dealt with life’s thorny issues, the husband,

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seemingly out of the blue, said that he and his wife would love to come to church sometime.

Needless to say, my dad and mom were delighted. The Sunday ser-vice started out with a great worship set. Then the smiley guy got up to give some commercials and take the offering right before the sermon, which, judging by its title on the bulletin, looked like a great one. So far, so good.

Then it happened. Smiley guy began to wax eloquent about an upcoming outreach event that would be the perfect opportunity to bring an “unsaved” friend. Special f lyers and brochures were available in the back to pick up and hand out. He then encouraged everyone to be sure they were praying for their lost friends. As he went on and on, my dad and mom slowly died. So did their “unsaved” friends, who had made the mistake of wanting to come to church a couple of weeks too soon.

They never did come back.My parents learned an important lesson: Never bring friends who

don’t know Jesus to the wrong ser vice.Though my folks no longer go to that church, I observed it long

enough to see that lots of others got the same message. Special programs always brought in a large crowd. But no one seemed to notice how few returned or how well the entire congregation had been trained to hold back their invitations until the next big event.

Now, here’s the irony. All this happened at a self-proclaimed “seeker church.”

There is a second unintended obstacle that highly programmed front-door churches can put in the way of natural evangelism. If most of the people who come to Christ come as the result of a complex and high-powered event, it sends a subtle message that it takes lots of time, plan-ning, and money to lead someone to Christ. And that tells the average Joe to hold off until we’ve scheduled the next great fishing party.

That’s not to say that special-event evangelism doesn’t work or that those who come to Christ as a result never stick. But it seems to me that spiritual birth is a lot like physical birth. It’s much easier when it’s natu-ral. Artificial insemination and other medical marvels can produce real children who grow up to have great lives, but it’s a rather inefficient way to replenish the next generation.

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Natural Follow-UpAnother area where a sticky church has an advantage is in following up on those who visit.

After a big event, it’s hard to follow up if you don’t know who came. Most people who come as a result of an advertising campaign won’t read-ily give out their name and contact information. We’ve come to value privacy too much to do so.

Even at weekend ser vices, a front-door church can have a harder time with follow-up. That’s because in any church with two or more ser vices, it’s hard to tell who is a guest and who just changed ser vices for the week-end. Since longtime members who switch ser vices don’t like to be asked if they’re visiting (try it; you’ll enjoy the dirty looks), most of us learn to treat anyone we don’t recognize as a regular we haven’t met or someone whose face we can’t remember.

It’s different in a sticky church. Since it doesn’t place much emphasis on big front-door events, most guests are brought on the arm of a friend. Few come with only a postcard or brochure in hand.

That makes follow-up natural and more likely to occur. Friends don’t need a follow-up program to remind them to ask, “How’d you like it? Any questions I can answer? Do you want to come again?” That’s what friends do.

At North Coast we didn’t have (or need) an organized follow-up pro-cedure until we were well past three thousand in weekend attendance. And we only needed it then because the small percentage of folks who came alone at that point added up to a large enough number that some were falling through the cracks.

Natural AssimilationSticky churches have still another advantage. Since they fill the front door primarily with people who’ve come through word-of-mouth referrals, assimilation takes place naturally. Friends don’t have to be reminded to assimilate friends. They do so naturally — and enthusiastically.

It’s also easier to assimilate when there’s no need to build a bridge between the bells and whistles of a big event and the more pedestrian pro-gramming of a weekend ser vice. Even if there is an occasional measure

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of bait and switch, those who come by the word-of-mouth invitation of a friend will know what to expect. There’ll be no surprises.

Instead of complex assimilation programs, a sticky church simply needs to provide plenty of ministry on-ramps to which members can eas-ily connect the friends they’ve invited.

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t h e

a n d t h e

foreword by j . j . b r a z i l , Pu l i t z e r P r i z e Winner

L I Q U I D L E A D E R S H I P

T H I R D - C U L T U R E C H U R C H

F O R A

monkey

mon

keyfish

gibb

on

s

Looking at the global shifts rocking all of us, Dave Gibbons offers a third-culture way to being the church. Gibbons offers creative applications that can help any church of any kind anywhere make a difference in the world. The Monkey and the Fish will help you live out your mission in a bold, revolutionary way.

DAvE GIbbOnS is the founding pastor of Newsong, a multisite, international

third-culture church. He is an in-demand speaker, innovative strategist, and cultural

specialist with global experience in the arts, business, church, and community

development. Dave is on the board of World Vision US. He’s

also founder and chief visionary officer of Xealot, a strategic

innovations group, creatively connecting resources

to leaders around the world.

a manifesto for how f i sh

dave gibbonsreligion / Christian Church / leadership

USD $16.99/CAD $17.99iSBn 978-0-310-27602-9

a mandate for change and

t h e

a n d

t h e

This book is part of the leadership network®

innovation Series.

Cover design: rob Monacelli

“Dave is asking the right questions while living out the right

answers. I couldn’t put this book down until I had finished it all.

He writes about our global and cultural context, which most

Western Christians are oblivious to ... but not for long.”

— Bob Roberts, pastor, NorthWood Church,

author, The Multiplying Church


Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

1: Liquid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 2: Wardrobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 3: Neighbor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 4: Liquid Bruce Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 5: Three Questions That Become the Answers 109 6: cWoWs: Everyone Plays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 7: Ripples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177Becoming Third Culture: Practical Next Steps . . . . . . . . 189Appendix: On the Verge: An Interview with David

Gibbons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

0310276020_monkfish_3rdPgs.indd 90310276020_monkfish_3rdPgs.indd 9 10/29/08 10:07:34 AM10/29/08 10:07:34 AM


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c u r r e n t 1

The desire for safety stands against every

noble human endeavor.

— Tacitus, Roman philosopher

I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for

justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m

a human being, first and foremost, and as

such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits

humanity as a whole.

— Malcolm X

The rebellious, disrespectful, disillusioned, and demand-ing Prodigal Son is the focus of one of the most glori-

ous moments in the Gospels. Yet the real highlight of that passage in Luke 15 is the radically gracious, generous, and forgiving father.

I love that story because it’s Eastern in its cultural tone. Normally, an Eastern father would never run toward his son. The typical Eastern son, with head bowed, would be quick to demonstrate obeisance to his father. However, this father is different. This father runs and, in what is considered by many to be the most intimate portrait of love in the Bible,



The Monkey and the Fish

32

kisses his son over and over again. Most versions of the Bible don’t translate these repeated kisses. The kisses of the father. Kisses that entwine forgiveness, celebration, and blessing.

The world longs for such kisses from the Father.No one should be in a better position to fulfill this long-

ing than the church. Who can give a better kiss than the church? A kiss without strings attached. A supernatural kiss that can set captives free. A kiss that inspires prodigals to remember real love and to come back home.

I sometimes think how sweet it would be if that were the reaction of every person, every family, every neighbor, every community, even every country, whenever they come into contact with those of us who follow Jesus, who make up the church.

I think it could happen.I believe that today God is calling us in the church to

become a different kind of movement, known for our kisses of compassion rather than our condemnations.

I’m not sure there’s ever been a better opportunity for those of us in the church to do so. A historic coming together of many unusual forces are shaping today’s global village. Our world is marked by unprecedented degrees of multicultural-ism, social advocacy, international collaboration and inter-dependence, and technology-driven outbreaks of freedom, unity, and community. They provide an intersection, a kairos moment, in which the church can shine.

From its first moments, the church has held the promise of being an expression of God’s presence on this earth. No other entity has greater potential to bring about real and



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sustainable change for good, whether we’re talking about individual lives or the world at large.

But something’s wrong. In North America, there has been a steady decline in church attendance, church giving, and church participation, a pattern we’ve already seen unfold in Europe, once the seat of Chris tian ity’s global expansion. These are signs of a much larger problem: the erosion of the significance of the church in the public square and in people’s personal lives. In the spring of 2006, a national poll in America indicated that only 17 percent of Americans said going to church is essential for a life of faith.

Altered States

Around the world, things are changing fast these days, and in ways that seemed unthinkable only a few years ago. Just ask any of the people who attended a recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. This annual gathering draws some of the most influential people in the world, including people from all fields — religion, politics, media, business, you name it. There was plenty of talk about novel business strategies and potential political partnerships. But people who are students of culture couldn’t help but notice that new topics and questions are looming large in the most important conversations taking place today. There are conversations about how China is upending the world economy and cul-ture, and about how China is eclipsing the United States in so many ways. There are conversations about how grassroots social change around the globe — which is being fueled by the internet’s vast potential for helping people leap barriers




34

of time, distance, and culture — is far outstripping institu-tional approaches to crises and problem-solving, whether the institution is political or religious or otherwise.

There are conversations about how the world demands that business not only be good for profits but also be good for the planet and good for people. In business, it used to be that one bottom line — profit — separated the good from the bad. Now there are at least two bottom lines to attend to: profit and cause. This new reality, this new way of doing things, has huge ramifications for the thinking, methods, and game plans of for-profit organizations and business entities of all kinds. Many in the corporate and nonprofit domains are pretty sleep-deprived these days trying to figure out this new world we live in and what it means to be cause-oriented and socially conscious with their gains. This is in large part because they recognize the profitability of cause marketing.

What does all of this have to do with those of us in the church? Well, just as the spheres of commerce and govern-ment are being fundamentally reshaped by globalism, so is the domain of the church. Again, it’s not new but a wake-up call to return to our roots, our calling as lovers of the marginalized.

Globalism applies to the many colossal shifts occurring in the world today because of an intense interdependence that countries, cultures, and people are experiencing with one another. The world is shrinking. By the day, it seems. Distances that once took months to cover now take hours. People and cultures unknown to us, let alone ever person-ally encountered by us, are an integral part of the fabric of our lives. For example, experts have said that if you take out



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the undocumented worker in places like California, that will wreak havoc on our economy. People in politics and busi-ness, in education and the arts, people throughout all of our institutions, are finding it difficult to keep up with the way the world is changing, to understand what’s happening and why, and to adapt.

I love the church. But the church historically has proven slow to embrace necessary change and to adapt to ethnic, sociological, and cultural shifts. It’s like we know we’re unhealthy but we don’t want to go to the doctor to take care of the problem. And I don’t think it has been any differ-ent with globalism. I’m concerned that with globalism, the nature and scope of the changes taking place in the world are so sweeping and the pace of change so unrelenting that we’re becoming increasingly out of touch with the reality of our sickness.

At the risk of oversimplifying things, globalism truly is what historians call a disruptive force, because it’s making for a very different, new world: culturally, economically, socially, technologically, commercially, and politically.

There are difficult, troubling aspects to this reshaping, but also wonderful possibilities. For instance, the collective threats posed worldwide by terrorism, pandemics, rogue mili-tary leaders, political and social corruption, environmental complexities, and racism are frightening and daunting. But I also see an unprecedented potential for creative international and cross-cultural collaboration because we are living in a cause-driven culture. It’s now hip to be advocates of justice and compassion. In fact, people everywhere are hungering




36

for authentic spiritual conversations and opportunities to change the world. I look at the spiritual movements taking place in China, India, and Southeast Asia and they leave me breathless. Around the planet, there is an openness not only to doing good but to experiencing Jesus and his teachings, and it’s growing exponentially.

The church has an amazing opportunity to become what God is hoping we will become. It’ll take the resculpting of our organizations and corporate culture, the incubation of new art forms, new languages and expressions, new symbols, flexible ways of being organized and led, and even a fuller explanation of what we know as the gospel. (See how one MIT graduate is reimagining the gospel. Search on these words: James Choung Story at http://youtube.com. The type of work James is doing is exactly the work that each genera-tion must do.) We need creative forms, methods, and prac-tices for sharing the truth we love and believe in that will work in the new world and with a new generation. We need fresh counterintuitive ways of leading — in practice and in philosophy.

As I travel around the world and talk to people, I hear many of us in the church expressing similar concerns and longings. We’re looking for something that fits what we know to be intrinsically true. We’re hungry for it. We sense the urgency of it.

Not one of us in the church has the answer, but I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by a group of young, mul-tigenerational, multiethnic leaders and servants who have stumbled onto something that seems to have a lot of promise



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in the new world we all find ourselves in. It’s something we call third culture. And these leaders that I’m discovering in cities all over the world, including America, are what we call third-culture leaders. It’s something we in the group of churches we’ve launched feel pretty strongly about. We’ve seen an application of third-culture concepts ignite some beautiful things as we’ve put them into practice around the world.

A third-culture church and a third-culture leader look at our global milieu and the church’s role in that milieu in a revolutionary way.

The Third-Culture Mandate

When we understand the powerful force of globalism — pos-sibly the single most significant macro influence impact-ing the world today — we’ll understand how third-culture churches and third-culture leaders can help sustain and revitalize the church.

When I use the term third-culture church, I’m referring to a beautiful yet sobering reality: whether we’re in Manhat-tan or Beijing or Sao Paulo, our credibility and the verac-ity of our initiatives will be measured by our third-culture lifestyles — hence the need to understand the third-culture mandate in light of the purposes of the church prioritized by Jesus himself when he was queried about the greatest com-mandment.

Third culture illuminates the dramatic changes in the world today as well as the insular and exclusive nature of the church. Yet by pursuing what a third-culture church and its




38

leaders might look like in principle and practice, we’ll be able to fulfill what Christ envisioned his church to be about.

In what some people have called the First Great Com-mission, God told Abraham that he and his offspring would be a “blessing to all the nations.” That, I believe, is our char-ter, our call, for our churches to be a true blessing to all the nations. And the nations have never been more ready and eager for the church to offer the supernatural kiss of blessing it can offer.

I hope to be able to show you why and how the world is craving a third-culture spirit from the church and third-cul-ture leaders within the church. We’ll also discover together that third-culture thinking and practices can help the church not only have an impact globally but also reexamine how we do church and develop leaders to connect with our twenty-first-century global village — a place that has gone through a hundred years of change in just the past decade.

Defining Third Culture

A working definition of third culture emerges from Genesis 12 and from the second greatest commandment: Third cul-ture is the mindset and will to love, learn, and serve in any cul-ture, even in the midst of pain and discomfort. From Genesis to Revelation you can track God’s relentless pursuit of blessing humanity in the midst of man’s rebellion. As you examine Genesis 1 – 12 again, you’ll discover that the first mention of the Great Commission isn’t in the book of Matthew but right here in Genesis 12, where God says that we are “blessed to be a blessing to the nations.” This blessing is revealed in



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the conclusion of the Bible in Revelation 5:9 – 14, where all the nations are gathered singing a new song.

The hard work of this definition is the last phrase — “even in the midst of pain and discomfort.” It is contrary to our nature and culture to embrace pain, but it is the catalyst for helping people to see God. As this book unfolds, you’ll discover that third culture is not just a trend or a new thing but the heart of God. In fact, God is third culture.

Third culture is not only about geography or skin color or language. For third-culture people, home is wherever Jesus is. Third culture is the bearing of pain to love those who are not like you. Third culture affirms one’s ethnic identity. One’s ethnicity is not ignored but celebrated! Third culture doesn’t dull the color of one’s culture. Third culture actually enhances a culture’s uniqueness while at the same time cel-ebrating the synergy of its fusion with other cultures. Third culture artfully flows in and out of multiple cultures like water.

Here’s another way of looking at it. First culture is the dominant homogeneous culture you live in. First culture tends to be more preservation-oriented, but that doesn’t mean people don’t take great risks. (For example, Asian immigrants often give up their status and wealth in their mother countries for the promise of better opportunities for their children in another country.) Second culture is the culture of those who aren’t quite comfortable with the first culture and often react to the first culture’s ways, maybe even rejecting their parents’ home culture. Third culture is being able to live in both first and second culture and even adopt




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an entirely different culture. Third culture is about adap-tation, the both/and, not the either/or, mindset. It doesn’t eradicate color or lines but embraces and affirms who we are, regardless of differences in ethnicity, culture, or mindset. Third culture is the gift of being more cognizant of and more comfortable with the painful fusion and friction inherent in cultural intersections.

Others have also done some profound thinking about diversity, multiculturalism, multiethnicity, multigeneration-alism, and other important topics that need attention. The challenge, I think, is that the solutions offered are often at best cosmetic, such as admonitions to hire more people of color, do pulpit exchanges, or include more music styles on Sunday mornings. Such common cultural initiatives often fall short of true racial reconciliation and lack depth.

Scars: Generating Breakthroughs

Stephen “Cue” Jean-Marie is a rapper with a penchant for quoting Malcolm X. He grew up in the slums of the West Indies. Not long ago, he ended up at Newsong Church’s cam-pus in Irvine, California, a place where some would never expect a person like Cue to show up, let alone take a leader-ship role. But he did show up. And not long after, he took on an extraordinary challenge. Members of the congregation and leaders at Newsong in Irvine wanted him to find the most marginalized community in Los Angeles, the kind of place that some people at Newsong would be uncomfortable to be in. We asked him to find a way for Newsong to make a difference in such a place.



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This was no easy task — on so many levels.First, there’s Cue himself. His stature is intimidating. He’s

a bodybuilder! He’s not a seminary-trained church leader. He was weaned on the streets, really. He has scars on his mus-cular forearms from being branded with hot spoons in his childhood, somebody’s sad idea of discipline. He’s an unlikely pastor.

Then there’s the people. To put it mildly, people in urban Los Angeles and suburban Orange County can be somewhat uncomfortable with one another. Los Angeles is a sprawl-ing ethnically diverse county of ten million people, some of whom live in some of the most impoverished, crime-ridden places in America. Orange County is akin to what you see on suburban prime-time reality shows (well, sort of), a place overflowing with wealth, excessive tastes, corporate execu-tives, racial homogeneity, and a pretty manic pursuit of a lifestyle filled with ease and good fortune. When someone leaves one of these counties and crosses the border of the other, they can be met with an unspoken “good riddance.”

And then there’s the challenge. How would Cue find a place in Los Angeles that would trust the intentions and methods of an Orange County megachurch? And would the Crenshaw community accept a legit urbanite and a man of the streets who had joined forces with a suburban mega-church? Even if Cue found such a place, what could a con-gregation in suburban Orange County possibly do that would be meaningful and valuable in a city radically different from Irvine? How could Cue persuade people in Orange County to embrace whatever cause and constituency he discovered?




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These barriers were just the beginning. But it’s the num-ber and nature of the barriers, and the degree of unlikelihood involved in this mission, that make Cue’s effort so remark-able. Looking back at it now, it’s something that God himself had to be part of for it to work.

Cue met the challenge by forming a partnership with what is arguably the most troubled school in Los Angeles, a community where the majority of the children come from single-parent homes, where in one recent week seven stu-dents were shot to death in suspected gang activity, where the high school recently lost its accreditation.

Besides being committed to helping the high school regain its accreditation, the initiative Cue leads today employs sports, health education, the arts, wellness disci-plines, mentoring, and whatever else might help to lift some of the burdens of the young people he deals with, and maybe even alter the trajectory of their lives.

Every day, Cue peers into the eyes of kids who are suffer-ing in the same way he once did. And they see him as some-one who doesn’t need an explanation, who understands, who knows. The neighborhoods he spends his days in are busting at the seams with fatherless boys ill-equipped to do more than plant the seeds of another fatherless generation and with emotionally crippled girls settling for the crumbs of what passes for affection. Others drive through and around this area, but against some tall odds, Cue and his brothers and sisters in the Newsong community are living out what Mother Teresa gently instructed all of us to do: “If you can-not feed a hundred children, well then, feed one.”



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Cue and some of his crew of former gang members are sought-after partners by the schools in Crenshaw. Young people are clamoring to be part of their club. Lives are being changed. Now Cue has launched another ministry in Los Angeles called the Row, working with one of the most neglected people groups in Los Angeles: the homeless. Despite the noise of helicopters flying overhead and police cars whiz-zing by with their sirens going, they do church every Friday night on an open street corner with drug addicts and alcohol-ics and, believe it or not, suburbanites from Orange County.

How did Cue pull this off? Was it simply the result of his innate leadership skills? Certainly that’s part of the explana-tion. But more intriguing is how Cue even ended up in the Newsong community. What attracted him to a community of ethnicities and cultures that are different from his? And how is it that he, not exactly prototypical leadership material for an American megachurch, came to be loved and empow-ered by Newsong to take on such a dangerous and meaning-ful mission?

The answer to all these questions finds its home in Cue’s pain. Cue epitomizes a new breed of leader, a leader who leads from what I call the pain principle. This is one of sev-eral attributes that mark a third-culture leader and a third-culture church. The pain principle grows out of two axioms: (1) For leaders, pain in life has a way of deconstructing us to our most genuine, humble, authentic selves. It’s part of the leader’s job description. (2) For most people, regardless of culture, it’s easier to connect with a leader’s pain and short-comings and mistakes than her successes and triumphs.




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One of the things I’m learning as I encounter people around the world today is that leaders who understand the pain principle are the kind of leaders the world is thirsting for. What’s intriguing to me is that this is the kind of leader the church was full of in its earliest days. Paul, Rahab, Ruth, Moses, Joseph, and Jesus himself were all such leaders. The apostle Paul, one of the greatest followers of Jesus, had a story similar to Cue’s. He said, “From now on, don’t let anyone trouble me with these things. For I bear on my body the scars that show I belong to Jesus” (Gal. 6:17 NLT). Paul is basically saying, “I have the right to speak to you because of these scars, evidence of Christ in me.”

Fuel the Fringe, Honor the Past

The church is called to be a third-culture community. Third culture is about the two purposes of life for every Christ-follower: loving God and loving your neighbor.

Without question, there are a lot of effective strategies and fruitful ideas being used in the church and in ministry today. Third culture is not simply a strategy but the way we are to live. One may not be naturally third culture, but we are called to move toward this vision. It seems that more than ever the world is open to such leadership. I say this sim-ply because we have experienced it in communities where we seriously pursued a third-culture lifestyle in diverse cultural contexts spanning several continents and saw how people gravitate toward this adaptive, liquid-type leader. Even the next US president is third culture. As of this writing, we don’t know whether the next president will be Obama or



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McCain, but both have third-culture characteristics from their past and present.

Any Church, Any Size, Anywhere

When my brother and I were teenagers, we were bottomless pits. We could consume massive quantities of food. My poor mom. She found really only one place she could take us that would satisfy us: the Royal Fork, an all-you-can-eat buffet where we ate for three to four hours at a sitting.

I can still picture the luscious spread. For my brother and me, nothing was more glorious than checking out every nook and cranny of that steamy buffet table and then consuming everything in sight. Buffets were our little heaven on earth. Nothing brings people together like good food!

That whole scene reminds me of a story in Luke 14 about another banquet that is jam-packed with prophetic power for us in the new millennium.

Jesus tells the story of a great feast being prepared in the kingdom of God. The host of the banquet has worked fever-ishly and is enthusiastic about this feast. So he dispatches a servant to visit all of the people who were invited to the banquet to make sure they are coming. One by one, how-ever, they all tell the servant they aren’t going to be able to attend. They’re busy attending to transactions and urgent matters. They appreciate the invitation but have to take a rain check.

In response, the deeply disappointed host deploys his ser-vant to go throughout the city to invite everyone he sees to the banquet — the homeless, the crippled, the lame, the




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poor, anyone he encounters. The servant lobs invitations to all comers, and before long, it’s clear the banquet tables are going to be filled after all with all manner of grateful, joy-ful people, people who are not too busy. Jesus quietly closes with the haunting admonition that not one of the people who were originally invited will taste the greatest buffet of all time.

Like all of Jesus’ parables, there’s plenty of mystery in this story for us to burrow into. What did he mean by this sad, jarring story? Well, to me, there’s a message for us in the church today.

As I travel to different nations, I see God’s beautiful sculpting hand creatively at work, as unmistakable as it is unobtrusive. Spectacular spiritual shifts are occurring. But I wonder if the church is sometimes too busy, too distracted, too inwardly focused to sense all that’s happening, all that could be, all that will be — with us or without us. Is it possible that we are so consumed with managing churches and min-istries and organizations that we’re missing out on an inter-national spiritual banquet like we’ve never seen before? Is it possible that the reality of the new world we’re living in gives the church an opportunity we’ve never had before, a chance for the church to be what we’ve always dreamed it could be?

I believe the church is the embodiment of Jesus on this earth. Think about that. That means that there is no orga-nization with greater potential to have an impact or to be a more potent force for good than a third-culture church that is unleashed. What other organization has that kind of reason for being?



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This all might sound pie-in-the-sky. That’s fine. But the God we serve and love has the widest idealistic streak of any of us. A baton is being passed today — in the world and in the church — and any church of any size in any place can accept that baton and run with it. God is raising up in our churches — and outside our churches, frankly — a new gener-ation of prophets with voices and liquid leadership skills tailor-made for our times. And I hope that none of us misses it.

In writing this book, my hope is that we will sacrificially foster and prioritize next-generation thinking, next-generation methods, and next-generation leaders in the church so that the global movement Jesus began will be known first and fore-most for sharing love without strings, healing, extravagant radical compassion, and radical reconciliation with the world so lovingly breathed into existence by our creator.

Shaping What Could Be

In addition to prayer and reflection on the state of the world these days, I’ve drawn from intentional experiential forays into nonprofit and for-profit work to better under-stand third-culture language and concepts, including my twenty years as a lead pastor developing churches both big and small, homogeneous and multicultural; from learning from some of the incredible leaders of churches and Chris-tian movements and organizations in North America, the Far East, the United Kingdom, and India; from adventures as a board member with World Vision and as founder of Xealot, a nonprofit organization that seeks to help people living in marginalized communities; from involvement with




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two global cause-oriented for-profit ventures, one a financial trading house in California and the other a music label in Los Angeles; and from serving as a consultant and counselor for young artists, business leaders, and musicians on several continents.

In my journeys, what’s becoming clear to me is that the more adaptive we are to the Holy Spirit and to diverse people groups and settings, the more we reflect who Jesus is and impact this new flat world.

Author Thomas Friedman has become a bit of a prophetic voice in this regard in the area of culture, politics, and busi-ness. In his seminal book, The World Is Flat, he describes some of the forces at work that are creating the groundwork and necessity for a third-culture movement in the church: “Two aspects of culture have struck me as particularly relevant in the flat world. One is how outward your culture is: To what degree is it open to foreign influences and ideas? How well does it ‘glocalize’ (a term that combines the necessity of both local and global initiatives — it’s not a choice)? The other, more intangible, is how inward your culture is.”1 In other words, organizations with cultures that intentionally or unin-tentionally maintain an inward focus — a culture of exclusivity and a leeriness of and even suspicion toward differences and change — are in real trouble in this twenty-first-century global village of ours. Conversely, the more an organization’s culture naturally glocalizes — the more easily our local cultures can absorb and embrace foreign ideas and best practices and meld those with the best of our traditions and values — the greater the boon we will enjoy in the new world.



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This new reality is the sweet spot of third culture.Now, for all of the challenges before us, there’s great

news for those of us who are privileged enough to be agents of the good news of God’s love. The urgent changes glo-balism is prompting the church to make, I believe, are what God himself would prescribe for us. I say this simply because of what I see in Scripture that reveals God’s impas-sioned, undeniable desire for the church’s role in the world. What begins in Genesis with a call for God’s people to be a blessing to all nations ends climactically in Revelation 7, where “all nations and tribes, all races and languages” are gathered together worshiping God. No matter how many times I read that passage, I never cease to feel lifted and emboldened to do whatever I can to help make that scene come to pass.

I don’t think we can imagine the degree of the exquisite beauty that that moment described in Revelation will bring. But we get to see a sliver of it when, on rare moments in world events, we witness people laying aside their differences and coming together for good. There’s something about that kind of unity and reconciliation that moves us beyond words. Likewise, that portrait in Revelation — a depiction of the cli-mactic reconciliation of God and the chief object of his love, humankind — lies at the core of the message, methodology, and motivation of third culture.

If Friedman’s bestselling The World Is Flat is an inspir-ing call to a different mindset about the world for business, culture, and government, then I think there’s an urgent call for the church to do likewise.




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We have much to learn from the world. A recent example is the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It left many people in the world speechless. The scale and pageantry of the event were unprecedented. But beyond the amazing artistry of the event, one could feel that this was a coming out party for China and for Asia. Once known primarily for its illegal copying of products, Asia is increas-ingly known for its creativity. David Brooks, New York Times op-ed columnist, had an insightful take on this ceremony. He writes, “The world can be divided many ways — rich and poor, democratic and authoritarian — but one of the most striking is the divide between the societies with an individu-alistic mentality and the ones with a collectivist mentality.”2 Brooks then refers to a study by professor of psychology Rich-ard Nesbitt in which Americans and Asians were shown individual pictures of a chicken, a cow, and hay. When they were asked which of the pictures go together, Americans typically picked the two animals. Asians typically picked the cow and the hay, since cows eat hay. Americans tend to see categories, whereas Asians are more likely to see relation-ships. That’s why doing business in Asia is about more than signing a contract; it’s about relationships of trust.

Often the Western world focuses on privacy and indi-vidual rights, whereas the Asian world focuses more on col-lective harmony, collective society. Brooks writes, “People in [individualistic] societies tend to overvalue their own skills and overestimate their own importance to any group effort. People in collective societies tend to value harmony and duty. They tend to underestimate their own skills and



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are more self-effacing when describing their contributions to group efforts.” In a world in which the healthiest people tend to be in community and those prone to depression and suicide tend to be disconnected, we have much to learn from our “neighbors.” The real value of our growing relationship with nations such as China will probably be more relational and community oriented than economic. We’ll learn to look beyond categories and see relationships. That’s third culture.



deliberate simplicit y

deliberate simplicity

browning

dave bro w ning

How the Church Does More by Doing Less

USD $16.99/CAD $17.99ISBN 978-0-310-28567-0

L e ss i s m o r e . A n d m o r e i s b e t t e r .

This is the new equation for church development—a new equation with eternal results.

Rather than the corporate, complex megachurch model of the past, church innovator Dave Browning embraced Deliberate Simplicity. The result was an expanding multisite church empowered for maximum impact.

As part of the Leadership Network Innovation Series, Deliberate Simplicity is a guide for church leaders seeking new strategies for more effective ministry.

“Einstein noted once that any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more

complex, but that it takes a touch of genius ... to move in the opposite direction.

Drawing deeply from the living witness of Christ the King Community Church,

Dave ... gives us not only a highly informative text on a critical subject, but also

an inspiring one.”

— Alan Hirsch, author of The Forgotten Ways

DAVE BROWNING is the founding pastor of Christ the King Community Church,

International (CTK), a nondenominational multisite church with locations in twelve

states and seven countries. It is named among

Outreach magazine’s America’s Most Innovative Churches.

Dave lives in Burlington, Washington, with his wife

and three children. RELIGION / Christian Church / Leadership

This book is part of the Leadership Network®

Innovation Series.

Cover design: Rob Monacelli


C O N T E N T S

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Introduction to a New Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

1. Minimality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35

2. Intentionality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

3. Reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .91

4. Multility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123

5. Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .149

6. Scalability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .173

Conclusion: It’s an Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Appendix 1: Seven Ways Less Can Be More . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Appendix 2: Twenty-five Reasons to Be Multisite . . . . . . . . . 207

Appendix 3: Organic Site Development Process . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Appendix 4: Short and Sweet: The One-Hour Ser vice . . . . . . 229

Appendix 5: Differences: What Makes CTK Different . . . . . . 245

Author Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

0310285674_simplicity_1stPgs.indd 70310285674_simplicity_1stPgs.indd 7 9/22/08 9:18:50 AM9/22/08 9:18:50 AM


15

I N T R O D U C T I O N T O A N E W E Q U A T I O N

< = – × + ∞A NEW EQUATION

Imagine with me for a minute . . . a church . . . but not your typ-ical church. A church where the main thing is the main thing. A church where people convene primarily in homes and secondarily in public spaces for worship ser vices. A church where the minis-try is carried out by ordinary people, and it is the pastor’s job to identify, deploy, train, and support these ministers. A church that is warm and accepting of both the churched and the unchurched. A church that sees hundreds of converts baptized each year. A church that numbers tens of thousands but convenes in thousands of small groups and scores of small worship centers. A church that has no geographical limits but spreads from house to house, neigh-borhood to neighborhood, town to town, county to county, state to state, and country to country. A church that is not just multilo-cation but also multiethnic and multinational.

What if this church were intentionally structured to reach an unlimited number of people in an unlimited number of places? What if this church were more like a movement than a ministry?

Do you have this picture in your mind? For me it’s not too difficult to imagine. I’ve been living inside this picture for the last few years.



D E L I B E R A T E S I M P L I C I T Y

16

Christ the King Community Church held its first worship ser vice on Sunday evening, April 4, 1999, in Mount Vernon, Washington. In May of that year, CTK began to hold morning ser vices, going to two ser vices in September and three ser vices the following February. During its first year, Christ the King of Skagit Valley grew at a rate of 12 percent a month to an average of over 500 people per week, with a high attendance of 763. By the end of CTK’s first year, thirty-eight small groups were convening weekly in Jesus’ name for friendship, growth, encouragement, and outreach.

From 2000 to 2004, CTK established hundreds of small groups throughout the region, with worship centers located in ten cities, in four counties. In 2004, Outreach Magazine recognized CTK as one of the fastest-growing churches in America.

In 2005, CTK began to expand across the country and around the world. We are now poised to go as far as relationships will take us (a current list of locations can be found online at www.ctkon-line.com). CTK has experienced extraordinary results by keeping it simple.

Church growth in the seventies, eighties, and nineties was defined by the megachurch. As researcher George Barna says, “We live in an era of hyperbole. Everything is supersized, global, mega-this, and biggest-ever-that. Even the religious community has succumbed to the world’s infatuation with size. The pinnacle of church success is to become a megachurch.” Megachurches have proven they are able to reach thousands of people with burgeon-ing budgets, sprawling campuses, huge payroll, and extensive pro-gramming. Large churches have demonstrated for the past three decades that more can be more. Deliberate Simplicity is a new equation for church development. It says less can also be more. This represents a paradigm shift.

When the paradigm shifts, the rules change. In baseball, for example, the foul lines are part of the paradigm. If the ball lands on one side of the line, it’s a fair ball. If it lands on the other side of




17

the line, it’s a foul ball. If the ball is hit over the fence, it’s a home run. If it lands short of the fence, it’s playable. What accounts for these differences? The paradigm. A paradigm is a set of rules that tell you how to play the game in order to be successful.

When I say that Deliberate Simplicity is a new paradigm for the church, I’m saying the lines have been moved from where you might expect to find them in a traditional church. “Traditional church” may sound pejorative. Here we mean simply a church defined by its locale, programs, facility, or denomination. If you hear someone say,

• “I attend the (color or architecture) church at the corner of Maple and Division”

• “My family has been members of the (Denomination) Church for generations”

• “I really like the productions they do over at the (First Something) Church”

• “Have you seen the new education wing the (big church in town) built?”

they are probably talking about a traditional church.In the Deliberately Simple church, the rules are: “Less is

more, and more is better.” Success within these lines boils down to six factors, presented here in the form of an equation: < = – × + {dec56}.

Factor Symbol Objective Question

Minimality <Keep it simple.

What

Intentional-ity

=Keep it mis-

sional.Why

Reality – Keep it real. How




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Multility ×Keep it cellular.

Where

Velocity +Keep it moving.

When

Scalability ∞ Keep it

expanding.How Far

The main ideas of Deliberate Simplicity are outlined in six sec-tions. The first three (minimality, intentionality, reality) explain how less is more. The last three (multility, velocity, scalability) expand on how more is better. The modular approach I have taken to writing about Deliberate Simplicity mirrors the modular approach we have taken in ministry. Each of the six chapters can stand on its own but is also part of a greater whole.

The differences between a Deliberately Simple church and a traditional church need to be discussed, because when you are in the middle of a paradigm, it is sometimes hard to imagine any other paradigm. Upside Down Map Co. of Derby, England, recently teamed up with Map Link Inc. of Santa Barbara, California, to print a road map of California with north and south reversed to make map reading easier for drivers heading south. Why didn’t I think of that? Probably because I was stuck in a paradigm that says a map always has to be laid out with N pointing up. When you get out of the box, you can see new possibilities.

Fifty years ago a church “map” invariably involved a church with a steeple, a seminary-trained minister in a three-piece suit or robe, a pew-filled sanctuary, hymnals, an organist, and a sermon delivered from behind a wooden pulpit. Today, if you participate in a Deliberately Simple church, you will most likely meet in a rented auditorium, sit on a stackable chair, sing along with pro-jected lyrics and a rock band, and hear conversational teaching by a bivocational pastor in blue jeans sitting on a stool.




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Church growth expert Peter Wagner speculates that the num-ber of churches that are out of the box now exceeds the amount of churches in the largest Protestant denomination, which has around forty thousand churches nationwide. Donald Miller, pro-fessor at the University of California at Berkeley, outlines twelve characteristics of the “New Paradigm Church”:

1. They were started after the mid-1960s. 2. The majority of the congregation members were born after

1945. 3. Seminary training of clergy is optional. 4. Worship is contemporary. 5. Lay leadership is highly valued. 6. They have extensive small group ministries. 7. Clergy and congregants usually dress informally. 8. Tolerance of different personal styles is prized. 9. Pastors tend to be understated, humble, and self-revealing. 10. Bodily, rather than mere cognitive, participation in wor-

ship is the norm. 11. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are affirmed. 12. Bible-centered teaching predominates over topical ser-

monizing.1

The church has always undergone change, reformation, and revolution. But today the major reforms taking place in the church are in the area of methodology rather than message, in practice more than theology. According to church growth expert Peter

Of the twelve characteristics, which three do you believe have special importance?




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Wagner, “The radical change in the sixteenth century was largely theological. The current reformation is not so much a reformation of faith (the essential theological principles of the Reformation are intact), but a reformation of practice.” Yet for the church — which often institutionalizes its practices — reforms in methodology can prove every bit as epic as reforms in theology. Fortunately, the sig-nificant changes that used to take decades, if not centuries, for the church to embrace are now happening in months and years.

One of the chief practical advantages of the Deliberately Simple paradigm is the speed at which gains can be achieved. If the goal is to build Christ’s kingdom and see spiritual transforma-tion happen on a massive scale, then the traditional church is not going to get it done. We are winning some battles but losing the war. In the United States, for instance, while megachurches are getting bigger and bigger, the culture is becoming more and more secular. In the Two-Thirds World, to which the “bigger is better” paradigm has been exported, the monetary requirements of building buildings and supporting pastors has been stifling and stalling the church. Only middle- to upper-class communities (or ministries supported from the outside) can pay the bill for the properties and staff they “need.” Instead of focusing on outreach, the church spends excessive energy focusing on the money it feels it requires to do outreach.

Deliberately Simple churches are finding that the way to effect dramatic change is to change the rules. When you change the rules, you automatically change the roles and results.

TraditionalDeliberately

Simple

Goal Improvement Redefinition

FocusBehaviors and

RulesAttitudes and

Roles




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Risk Low High

Result Minor Gains Major Gains

Speed Slow Fast

Sometimes the paradigm you’re working with does more harm than good. For instance, the prevailing medical theory used to be bloodletting. Now it’s germ theory. What if hospitals had done TQM (total quality management) on bloodletting? They would have been doing the wrong thing even better. If the paradigm doesn’t work, executing the paradigm better actually makes things worse. You climb the ladder only to find that it’s leaning against the wrong wall.

While I agree with the axiom that says, “No model is perfect; some are useful,” there is a growing sense that the megachurch ladder may be leaning against the wrong wall. In fact, the situa-tion may be more dire than that. In his book Revolution, researcher George Barna speaks to a growing angst regarding the institu-tional church. His research indicates that there may be as many as twenty million spiritual revolutionaries who no longer view the church as the locus for their spiritual experience. Church consul-tant Reggie McNeal states that “a growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith.”

When decidedly different, more useful answers to questions start to appear, you are seeing the beginnings of a new paradigm. With momentum, these new rules become a paradigm shift. The Deliberately Simple church appears to be in the same place in its development as the United States of America prior to the Consti-tutional Convention in Philadelphia. We have a dream. We have a new land in which to live out that dream. We have principles that are guiding us. We are experiencing newfound freedom living




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by these principles. To facilitate further expansion, we have to do what the Founding Fathers did. We have to put our hearts on parchment. As Martin Luther nailed ninety-five theological tenets to the church door in Wittenberg, today we are posting this practi-cal thesis in big, bold letters: DELIBERATE SIMPLICITY.

The word Deliberate says that we want to be intentional about what we try to do and how we try to do it.

de•lib•er•ate adj: carefully thought out and done intentionally

By definition, deliberate speaks to design (“thought out”) as well as drive (“done intentionally”). A deliberate church thinks through the outcomes it wants to achieve, lets form follow func-tion, and takes responsibility for results.

Simplicity describes the manner in which the Deliberately Sim-ple church intends to carry out its mission: simply.

By simple we mean:

sim•ple adj sim•pler, sim•plest 1: easy to understand, deal with, use, etc.: a simple matter; simple tools 2: plain; not elaborate or artificial: a simple style 3: unadorned; not ornate or luxurious: a simple gown 4: unaffected; unassum-ing; modest: a simple manner 5: not complicated: a simple design 6: single; not complex or compound 7: occurring or considered alone; mere; bare: the simple truth; a simple fac. 8: free from deceit or guile; sincere; unconditional: a frank, simple answer 9: common or ordinary: a simple soldier 10: unpretentious; fundamental: a simple way of life 11: humble or lowly: simple folk

syn 1: Clear, intelligible, understandable, unmistak-able, lucid 2: Plain, natural, unembellished, neat 3: Unpre-tentiousIn the book of Acts, we find the first-century church meet-

ing in homes and gathering in public spaces for assembly. The early church was not about religion but about relationships . . . lov-




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ing God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself. It was that simple. Deliberate Simplicity inquires, “Can’t we go back to that?”

THE BANE OF COMPLEXITYComplexity has been a prevailing trend in modernity, but

people are not wired for it naturally. One of the reasons your phone number has seven digits is that Alexander Graham Bell conducted studies that indicated that retention fell off dramatically beyond seven numbers. Psychologist George Miller wrote a famous paper in the 1950s entitled “The Magic Number Seven Plus or Minus Two.” Miller’s studies showed that people can handle only about seven pieces of information at any one time in their short-term memory.

Studies are showing that we get bogged down when we have too many “open circuits.” Educators are finding that when it comes to the brain, less is more. Parents who overstimulate their young children are missing the point. Author John Bauer, in The Myth of the First Three Years, says it is not about having more synaptic connections. It’s about capitalizing on the strongest connections. In fact, many billions of connections will be shut down naturally so you are freed up to exploit the ones that remain. Biologically, losing connections is the point, not gaining them.

When I was a kid in Alaska, we had only three or four televi-sion channels (yes, and I really do have stories about walking to school in the snow too). With so few channels, I pretty much had

Looking at the above definitions, how do you feel about the words simple and church go-ing together?




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the programming memorized for the entire week. Those days are long gone. Today there are so many channels, so many programs, so many publications, so many websites, that we will all feel hope-lessly behind unless we are deliberate about our simplicity. Absorb-ing all the data is impossible. The sooner we filter the channels, the better.

People are growing to not just desire simplicity but demand it. An anonymous email comes to Google (a leading search engine on the internet) on an ongoing basis. Every time, the email con-tains only a two-digit number. It took the folks at Google a while to figure out what the author was communicating. He was giving them feedback on the number of words on Google’s homepage. When the number started to go up, say to fifty, he would get agi-tated and send them an email. Now Google finds his emails help-ful, because his feedback has disciplined them to not introduce too much complexity on their homepage. The email is like a scale for words.

In contrast, rival web portal Yahoo! has over five hundred words on its homepage. Its model of “ministry” is more akin to the modern megachurch — providing a multitude of links and options for its users.

Yahoo! is about everything, so it is forgivable to think that it may stand for nothing. . . . Google is a classic example of succeeding through focus and execution. Yahoo!’s model, by comparison, is anything but classic. The company’s offerings are so broad that it isn’t considered the go-to site for any particular ser vice or feature.

— Michael Malone

Both Yahoo! and Google are successful in attracting visitors to their sites (119 million per month and 72 million per month, respectively) and have strong revenue ($3.2 billion and $2.7 bil-lion). But while Yahoo! is proving that more can be more, Google is proving that less can be more. Google’s style in advertising is




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minimalist. Yet the little text-only ads on Google outperform the flashy, full-page banners on Yahoo!

While the “less is more” approach hasn’t received much play in the church, it has been catching on for a while in business. For instance, In-N-Out Burger, a California-based chain of 175 burger joints, has a business model similar to Google’s. It is Deliberate Simplicity applied to food ser vice. The company draws lunch-time crowds with its few offerings. It sells burgers — single or dou-ble — fries, sodas, and shakes. That’s it. Cheese is one of the few options. By contrast, McDonald’s has added thirty-seven items to its core menu since 1955.

Warehouse retailer Costco takes a deliberately simple approach. They offer fewer choices in larger packaging. That means some cus-tomers may pass up purchases because the gallon jar of mayonnaise is too big or the brand isn’t their favorite. But the benefits far exceed the lost sales. Stocking fewer items streamlines distribution and hastens inventory turns — and nine out of ten customers are per-fectly happy with the mayonnaise. Costco’s warehouses are spartan (concrete floors, fluorescent lighting, etc.). Their pricing displays are understated (paper in a plastic sleeve). They stock less than 10 percent of the items of a typical Wal-Mart. They are very selective in what they choose to offer. Yet Costco is doing just fine, and Wal-Mart is trying to emulate their success with their Sam’s Clubs.

In office supplies, Deliberate Simplicity is the difference between Staples and Office Depot. Staples wants to make it easy. They feature “the easy button” in their promotions. Their goal is to make it easy for you to get in and get out quickly. Office Depot wants you to stay around and shop.

Trader Joe’s is a specialty grocery retailer that has become a cultural phenomenon by keeping it simple. Len Lewis, in his book The Trader Joe’s Adventure, says,

Because Trader Joe’s has mastered operational disciplines that elude even the most sophisticated retailers, many retail industry experts say the chain defies any neat description




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or standard categorization. By all rights, the very things that make it successful should be a recipe for disaster. Its average store is only about half the size of even the small-est neighborhood supermarket these days. Each location only carries about 2,500 items, compared to an average of 25,000 at conventional supermarkets. And instead of large, easy-to-access locations, most are housed in relatively small, older strip shopping centers with limited parking. . . . [Yet by] being different, Trader Joe’s has built itself into a business with annual sales of $2.6 million, or $1300 per square foot, which is about twice the supermarket industry average. . . . From the beginning, the company’s guiding principle was to offer a limited number of items at extremely low prices in barebones stores.2

USA Today recently ran a front-page cover story heralding “our national craving for all things simple.” We’ve got cell phones, pagers, Palm Pilots, and iPods. But a recent poll found that nearly one in five Americans are seriously seeking alternatives to their hectic daily lives. The desire for simplicity is an age-old yearning that is being exacerbated by “technological progress.” If you don’t believe this,

try counting the money the Chicken Soup for the Soul books have made, or looking into the resurgence of National Public Radio.

We live in a world much akin to the first century. The acids of modernity have eaten away our sophistication, and we are stripped down to the nakedness of simplicity.

— Jess Moody

Can you add one more deliberately simple

company to the ones mentioned?Cco




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Simplicity works better than complication partly because it mitigates the impact of Murphy’s Law. U.S. Air Force Captain Edward Murphy said in 1949, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Mathematicians have now come up with factors that increase the likelihood of Murphy’s Law coming into play, like urgency, complexity, importance, and skill. From running different scenarios, they found that to increase the odds of disaster, all you need to do is combine two of the above elements. For instance, try to avoid doing anything complex when you’re in a rush. Or, as we have espoused in Deliberate Simplicity, when you have something important to do, keep the process simple. The more complexity in the system, the more likely that implementation will fail. Some churches are living examples of this. Why are things always going wrong? Murphy’s Law, amplified by complexity. The law of com-plexity says that the level of complexity is equal to the square of the number of different steps in a task.

We were 1-2 and we were running forty-seven plays on offense. I cut that to thirteen and we won four in a row.

— Lou Holtz, Football Coach

One of the things that made Wendy’s better was putting a limit on the number of ideas we would implement.

— Dave Thomas, Founder of Wendy’s

Eric Bende spent eighteen months off the power grid with the Minimites — a group who decided to go without telephones, run-ning water, refrigeration, or electricity. He wrote about his experi-ences in Better Off: Pulling the Plug on Technology. His conclusion was not that technology is a problem but that letting technology dominate our lives is. Bende advises, “When in doubt, use less technology.”

One of the questions that takes the church back to basics is, how would we do church if we didn’t have electricity? Your answer will undoubtedly push you back to the essence of the church and




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away from the artificiality of modernity. I like Matthew 10:9 – 10 in The Message: “Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment.” Like Henry David Thoreau, I believe that “technology has become an improved means to an unimproved end.” One of our CTK pastors encourages the people in his wor-ship center to occasionally fast from technology (no phones, TV, lights, etc.) for personal health.

Most of our CTK worship centers utilize an overhead projec-tor to show song lyrics, instead of computer-driven PowerPoint. Why? It’s relatively inexpensive to get set up with a projector. It’s relatively simple to prepare and execute. Anyone can operate the equipment. It is a low-tech, simple solution. We’re not trying to dazzle people with pixels. We’re not trying to impress them into the kingdom of God. We’re attempting to love them in. For the most part, the ser vice order you’ll find at a CTK worship center consists of two parts: uninterrupted worship and very clear, lucid teaching, with no bells or whistles.

Technology doesn’t always work for us like we think it does. Sometimes technology is a waste of time. A study of boardroom decision-making determined that the same decision would have been made whether or not there was a fancy PowerPoint presenta-tion. While computers can be very helpful (particularly to speed up and automate laborious processes), they also give us the capa-bility to play solitaire, send instant messages, fiddle with fonts or monkey around with layout, all of which is dissipated waste.

Sometimes technology works against you by making things more difficult instead of less. Jim Collins, in Good to Great, uses the conflict in Vietnam as a case in point.

Technology cannot turn a good enterprise into a great one, nor by itself prevent disaster. History teaches this lesson repeatedly. Consider the United State’s debacle in Vietnam. The United States had the most technologically advanced fighting force the world has ever known. Super




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jet fighters. Helicopter gunships. Advanced weapons. Com-puters. Sophisticated communications. Miles of high-tech border sensors. Indeed, the reliance on technology created a false sense of invulnerability. The Americans lacked, not technology, but a simple and coherent concept for the war on which to attach that technology. It lurched back and forth across a variety of ineffective strategies, never getting the upper hand.

Meanwhile, the technologically inferior North Viet-namese forces adhered to a simple, coherent concept: a guerrilla war of attrition, aimed at methodically wearing down public support for the war at home. What little technology the North Vietnamese did employ, such as the AK-47 rifle (much more reliable and easier to maintain in the field than the complicated M-16), linked directly to that simple concept. And in the end, as you know, the United States — despite all its technological sophistica-tion — did not succeed in Vietnam.3

The current war on terrorism is taking us back to a “less is more” approach.

On September 11, 2001, a tiny band of Internet-savvy fundamentalists humbled the world’s only superpower. It turned out that the FBI, the CIA, a kiloton of tanks, and an ocean of aircraft carriers and nuclear subs were no match for passionate focus, coordinated communication, and a few $3.19 box cutters. The terrorist conceived the ultimate “virtual organization” — fast, wily, flexible, deter-mined. And then, despite numerous slip-ups, said terror-ists trumped the bureaucratic behemoths lined up against them.

— Tom Peters, Re-imagine

Shortly after the September 11 attacks, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, discussing the search for Osama Bin Ladin,




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asked rhetorically, “Is it likely that an aircraft carrier or a cruise missile is going to find a person?” Obviously, to find individuals hiding in caves, the strategy will have to be much more pedes-trian.

Deliberate Simplicity is a “boots on the ground” approach to the church’s mission. We believe that if we can get God’s people to simply love God and love people, the church cannot be stopped.

THE COMPLICATED CHURCHIn the absence of Deliberate Simplicity, churches can eas-

ily become complicated, either in message (theologically) or in method (organizationally). I’ve experienced both the complication that comes from too many doctrines and the complication that comes from too many programs.

I was raised in a traditional church — a church that was decid-edly denominational and conservative. The particular denomina-tion in which I grew up had emerged from the theological conflicts of the early twentieth century, when liberalism began to challenge the inerrancy of Scripture. As believers were separating from this heresy and apostasy, a particular group of churches decided to practice second-degree separation — to extricate themselves not only from heretics but also from anyone who did not separate from heretics. This quest for extreme purity, while well-meaning, spawned a culture of guilt-by-association, suspicion, judgmental-ism, and legalism. Over the decades, more issues surfaced, more lines were drawn, and more doctrines were articulated. By the time I arrived on the scene, seemingly everything was worth fighting for. Even the smallest biblical point was magnified to rival the virgin birth of Christ in seriousness. Looking back now, it was sig-nificantly harder to get into that church than into heaven. I spent my spiritually formative years wondering if I measured up.

As I came into adulthood, and into my first ministry, I expe-rienced another form of complication, the “program model” of ministry. My first pastorate was in a hyperactive church. This




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church, though in a rural setting, had weekly ser vices Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, and Wednesday nights, an age-graded Sunday school from the cradle to the grave, weekly youth meet-ings, a midweek children’s club program, several choirs and music groups, three banquets each year, an annual missions conference, an annual revival, weekly men’s and women’s meetings, monthly deacons’ meetings, quarterly and annual congregational meetings, and two annual retreats.

How did the church do all this? The answer was another layer of complication. The church had been in existence for forty years and had collected quite an assortment of committees. There was the kitchen committee, the benevolence committee, the missions committee, the men’s ministry committee — over thirty commit-tees in all! Just managing these committees was a full-time job. Needless to say, most of everyone’s energy went into supporting and maintaining the organizational infrastructure. Complication is the bane of a large organization. Many churches today are over-featured and unnecessarily complex. The complexity is strangling their ability to grow.

Each epoch of church history has introduced its own lay-ers of complexity. The medieval church introduced hierarchical control, the reformed church introduced theological correct-ness, the corporate church introduced programmatic complex-ity. It doesn’t really matter how we got here. We got here. To the extent that today’s church has become political, institutional,

What examples of complication have you observed in the church?




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or programmatic, we are making it more complicated than it needs to be.

SIMPLE DELIBERATELYComplexity causes people to yearn for simple, profound ideas

that can be readily related to diverse situations. Deliberate Sim-plicity delivers these ideas to the church.

We are not espousing simplicity because we haven’t yet figured out how to be complicated. We are simple by design. We believe that simplicity is a preferable way to go about things. That’s not to say that simplicity is necessarily an easier way to go about things. Simplicity requires a lot of prayer, thought, hard work, and disci-pline. The paradox of simplicity has been called Meyer’s Law: It is a simple task to make things complex, but a complex task to make them simple.

Think about the things in your life that you enjoy because of their simplicity. I think of my Honda Civic, for instance. Why isn’t everything designed to be this simple? The answer is, because it’s easier to be complicated than it is to be simple. Simple takes much more time and attention. Anybody can be complicated, but simplicity is a gift.

’Tis a gift to be simple.’Tis a gift to be free.’Tis a gift to come down where we ought

to be. — Shaker Hymn

Bob Buford has achieved success in business and ministry. When he mentors young leaders, he often asks, “What is it that you intentionally do not do that fuels your success?” The con-cept is pretty simple but by no means obvious. As Jim Collins points out in his book Good to Great, “Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding ‘to do’ lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing — and doing more. And it




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rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, how-ever, made as much use of ‘stop doing’ lists as ‘to do’ lists. They displayed a remarkable discipline to unplug all sorts of extraneous junk.” That’s the clarion call of Deliberate Simplicity: to unplug the extraneous.

As Al Ries discusses in his book Focal Point, there are only four different things you can do to improve the quality of your life and work:

1. You can do more of certain things. You can do more of the things that are of greater value to you and bring you greater rewards and satisfaction.

2. You can do less of certain things. You can deliberately decide to reduce activities or behaviors that are not as helpful as other activities.

3. You can start to do things you are not doing at all today. You can make new choices, learn new skills, begin new projects or activities, or change the entire focus of your work or personal life.

4. You can stop doing certain things altogether. You can stand back and evaluate your life with new eyes. You can then decide to discontinue activities and behaviors that are no longer consistent with what you want and where you want to go.

While the traditional church tends to choose doors 1 and 3, the Deliberately Simple church looks at what is behind doors 2 and 4. By doing less of certain things, and stopping other

Which of these four choices is most difficult? Which is least difficult?




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things altogether, energy and resources can be reinvested in the few things really worth doing. By not being so broad, we can go deeper.

The mascot for Deliberate Simplicity is the paper clip. The paper clip provides maximum functionality from minimal means. The first bent-wire paper clip was patented by Samuel B. Fay in 1867. It was originally intended primarily for attaching tickets to fabric, although the patent recognized that it could be used to attach paper items together.

Now every year 10,000 tons of steel go into making paper clips. A few years back, during a slowdown in the economy, Lloyd’s Bank of London decided to find out what happens to all these paper clips. Lloyd’s tracked a batch of 100,000 paper clips within its bank. Here is what they found: 25,000 were simply lost in the shuffle, swept up or vacuumed into oblivion; 19,413 served as card game chips; 14,163 were twisted and made useless during phone conversations; 7,200 were used as hooks for belts, suspenders, or bras; 5,434 were used to pick teeth or scratch ears; 5,308 were used as nail cleaners; 3,196 were used as pipe cleaners. The remaining 20,286, or about 20 percent, were used for their intended purpose of clipping papers together.

Just because something is designed to be simple doesn’t mean it will fulfill its intended purpose. This is why we have to be delib-erate.



CONTENTS

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Introduction: We Can’t Let This One Get Away . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

1. The Beginning of a Servolution: Forty-Five Tons of Tea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

2. Strategic Servolution: Rat Bait and Cheetah-Print Nightgowns . . . . . . . . . 28

3. The Culture of Serving: An Unexpected Opportunity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

4. Servolution Is All about Jesus: Four Walls and a Slave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

5. Hurricane Katrina: The Day the Levees Broke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

6. Servolution Top Ten: A Lesson from Ben and Jerry’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

7. The Fabric of a Servolution: A Towel and a Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

8. Unlocking the Need: There’s a Great Treasure Inside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

0310287634_servolution.indd 90310287634_servolution.indd 9 2/5/09 8:56:46 AM2/5/09 8:56:46 AM


9. Staying on Course: A Speech, a Spotlight, and a Season . . . . . . . . . . . 102

10. The Cost of a Servolution: More Than Money . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

11. No Excuses: 165,000 Easter Eggs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

12. Servolution Street: The Neighborhood Where Jesus Lives . . . . . . . . . . 131

13. Keep Your Serve Alive: Avoiding Compassion Fatigue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

14. Never Serve Alone: Where’s My High Five? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Conclusion: Picking Up the Towel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Appendix 1: Servolution Toolkit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165Appendix 2: Servolution Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198



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CHAPTER 2

STRATEGIC SERVOLUTIONRat Bait and Cheetah-Print Nightgowns

We were experiencing the amazing privilege of being a part of changing people’s lives simply by meeting their needs. We were like a kid who’d been allowed to have just one taste of the world’s best ice cream1 and was overwhelmingly determined to go back for more. A passion for serving others was burning in all of our hearts. We had been doing what we could find to do, whatever opportuni-ties God gave us no matter how small they seemed. Don’t forget the principle of God’s kingdom: those who are faithful with the little things will be given much. We didn’t know it, but our servo-lution was getting ready to explode.

It started with a chain reaction that ignited when our sound system fried. We needed a new system, but still being a very young church, we didn’t have the budget to just go out and buy one. So we decided to hold a big garage sale to raise the funds. We asked people to donate items for the sale, and soon our parking lot was filled with our congregation’s gently used, throwaway valuables. There were toasters, couches, pogo sticks, 8-track players, ceramic roosters, Ginsu knife sets, and other as-seen-on-TV treasures. I’m pretty sure there was even one of those Flowbee haircutting things.2

Just hours before the sale, I received a call from a man who wanted to give an offering to pay for the new sound system. How cool! The need for a new sound system was met and we hadn’t even sold one item yet!



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But now we had all this stuff sitting in the parking lot. Since it was all ready anyway, we decided to go ahead with the sale, thinking maybe we would be able to buy some new microphones and instruments as well.

Now, let me remind you my intent here is not to offer a for-mula for starting a servolution. So much of the servolution journey for us has been going with the flow, and taking advantage of the unexpected turns that we didn’t see coming but God had been preparing us for. What happened on the day of the garage sale was unplanned and accidental. But looking back, it is easy to see that it was clearly God’s plan for us all along.

We started the sale early in the morning, complete with food, drinks, and other concessions. I was looking forward to meeting all the new people who would drive onto our small campus that day. I was also looking forward to helping them fill their trunks with great garage-sale treasures. What I didn’t expect was all the haggling that was about to begin. It wasn’t long before I was no longer happy to see any of these new people. After about the fifteenth lady who tried to haggle me down to a quarter for a mauve and country-blue wind chime marked at fifty cents, I had finally had it. I walked over to one of the volunteers and said, “I can’t take this haggling anymore! So I have an idea. Let’s just give everything away — food, drinks, everything. What do you think? Can we pull it off?” I knew it could create a crazy out-of-control scene to do it without a decent plan, so I sent her off to devise a riot-free strategy.

I walked over to one of the volunteers and said, “I can’t

take this haggling anymore! So I have an idea. Let’s

just give everything away — food, drinks, everything.”

Ten minutes later, her team had thought of the perfect plan. When people came up, we told them they had a certain limit they could take for free: up to five items or up to a particular sum. Not only did we give everything away, but we made a great impression on the community. Plus, we did it all without my winding up on the



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front page of the local newspaper for yelling at a little old lady who was simply trying to get a better deal on a goofy wind chime.

Here’s what happened as a result of that day: everyone was excited about coming to a garage sale expecting to pay but leaving with a bag of free merchandise. Word of mouth spread quickly that there was a church giving stuff away, and one guy even called the radio station to tell them about “this crazy church doing a garage sale giving everything away!” In addition, our people were having a blast hosting this first-ever free garage sale. It was a revolutionary concept, and it was refreshing to our community. The volunteers loved seeing the expressions of excitement and intrigue on people’s faces as they got to bless them and could not wait to do it again. The chain reaction of our servolution continued as people from our community began to see church in a whole new light and started showing up to ser vices because they wanted to be a part of it.

Jesus kicked off chain reactions all the time when he healed the sick and spoke into people’s lives. For example, in Mark 1, the Bible says that one man who Jesus healed “went out and began to talk freely, spreading the news. As a result, Jesus could no longer enter a town openly but stayed outside in lonely places. Yet the people still came to him from everywhere.” One act of kindness tipped the first domino that tipped another, and in the end, people came from everywhere to meet Jesus.

GIVE IT AWAYOur chain reaction continued after the radio station tagged us as “the church that gives stuff away” and we received a call from a local businessman whose company deals in pest-control supplies. He had a couple of extra pallets of rat bait in his warehouse and wanted to know if we wanted to give it away. Give away rat bait? I thought. But before I knew it, I heard myself saying, “Sure, why not? Thanks!” still a little unclear of what I was getting us into.

We had one faithful volunteer named Mark Stermer3 who always showed up to church on his days off, driving his full-sized




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pickup truck. As soon as he arrived, we set out for the warehouse and filled the bed of his truck with the two pallets of rat bait. Now, you may not know this, but rat bait isn’t exactly featherweight, and Mark’s truck nearly dragged the ground under the load. We started by taking some to the church because to be honest, we needed rat bait at the church just as much as anyone else did. We had lots of church mice then, and we still do now.

Then we began an outreach that would have put the Pied Piper out of business. We visited neighborhoods, trailer parks, businesses, a few bayous, going from door to door offering free rat bait. We’d say, “Hey, we’re from Healing Place Church. Someone gave us this rat bait for free, and we just wanted to bless you with some if you need it.” It took a long, long time to give away all that bait, but we did it. Those who needed it were excited to take some. Those who didn’t need it were still given a good impression about the heart of this local church.

Every single one of the volunteers was fired up! We found that the more we gave stuff away, the more stuff we found ourselves being given to give away. How cool is that? Who would have thought that distributing those two palettes of rat bait was just the beginning of a whole lot more free commodity distribution?

We found that the more we gave stuff away, the more

stuff we found ourselves being given to give away.

We have a friend4 who at the time was working for a ministry that served as a huge pantry for inner cities all over the country. He had connections providing him with truckloads of a wide vari-ety of goods: pretty much anything you could typically pick up at Wal-Mart. He heard about all the giveaways we were doing, so he called and asked if we would want to distribute truckloads of these items as they came available.

I thought, Well, if we can give away rat bait, certainly we can give away food and everyday household items. He took us at our word and shortly sent us a semitruck of bananas. Have you ever considered



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how many bunches of bananas can fit inside a semi? I’ve counted. A semitruck can hold, exactly, a whole bunch.

We filled our cars with bananas and took them to people who needed food, but even after hours of this, there were still more bananas to give away. We called all our friends and asked them to come and fill their cars so they could distribute some. There were still more bananas to give away. I started to think maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all, since the idea of a semitruck sitting for a couple of days in Louisiana heat would not be a pretty sight (or smell).

So we did something that for its time was innovative. At the spur of the moment, we called as many other churches and orga-nizations as we knew and asked them to take some of the bananas in order to get them into the hands of people who needed a bless-ing. Finally, we unloaded a jungle’s worth of bananas, and a lot of people in our community got their recommended daily allowance of potassium that day.

As successful as this outreach was, we decided if we were going to continue with these giveaway projects and grow to be able to handle even larger amounts of goods, we needed to have a plan:

1. We organized. We needed the giveaways to be focused and orderly, not random and sloppy. We weren’t going to ran-domly throw free things at people as they happened to go by and have the stuff end up in the garbage. We wanted to target the areas and groups of people who would benefit the most from these goods.

2. We included others. We knew the value of having healthy relationships with other churches and organizations, and we learned very quickly that including them in our plans for these giveaways was a great way to start relationships with many of them. So we developed a list of contact people from various places whom we could call when we needed help with the distribution.

3. We gave with no strings attached. The goal of our servolu-tion has always been to demonstrate the love of Jesus, not




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to make people feel like they now owed it to us to come to a ser vice. Don’t get me wrong, we tried our best to be sure to tell them where we were from so they would know that ultimately it was God who was blessing them. But regardless of whether they ever walked into our church, we wanted them to understand that both God and our church loved and believed in them.

The goal of our servolution has always been to

demonstrate the love of Jesus, not to make people

feel like they now owed it to us to come to a ser vice.

So the trucks kept coming. We started to get two or three trucks delivered every week. The more we did it, the more strategic we became. The first time we received a call about a truckload of Snapple beverages being delivered to us, we knew just what to do. By the time the semi pulled up to the church, our parking lot was filled with the cars of not only our volunteers but also the leadership of many other churches and groups — all of them ready and waiting to load-and-go. Cars, pickups, minivans, and even passenger vans were lined up, making the church look like a drive-through Snapple warehouse.

That summer, we gave away two hundred and fifty thousand bottles of Snapple and over forty tons of bananas. And the best part about it all was that no one worried about who got the credit. We didn’t insist that anyone who took stuff from us come to church the next weekend. We didn’t require any of the other organizations who helped distribute stuff mention our church as they gave it away. It was all just about helping others. It was the body of Christ in Baton Rouge working together to bless people.

Another important goal we had was for our entire congrega-tion to be connected with what was going on. So when the trucks came in, we often unloaded the boxes of merchandise and stored them inside our auditorium. This way, people couldn’t miss them



SERVOLUTION

34

whenever they walked into the church. There were stacks of boxes ten feet high lining the walls of the sanctuary. I thought the people needed to see everything that was going on. At the end of a ser-vice I told the people, “You see all those boxes? We’re going to be giving all of that away this week and we need your help with the outreach. But if you have a need today, pick up whatever you need in the back; we’ve got some people ready to serve you. And while you’re getting what you need, be sure to sign up for the outreach this weekend. Come back and help us give to others who are also in need.” It was a cool kind of crazy thing to get to do.

The trucks contained just about everything you could imagine. We would open up the back and sometimes there were forty pallets of forty different items: Guess jeans, cookies, Right Guard deodor-ant, Listerine mouthwash, screwdrivers, chocolate Easter bunnies, toys, purses, shoes, socks — seriously, everything you could imagine. With a list like that, we knew we needed to be creative to determine the most strategic locations to target so nothing would go wasted. “Screwdrivers? Let’s go to a vocational school. Jeans? Let’s go to some high schools. Toys? Let’s go to the children’s ward at a hospital.”

There was only one time that we opened a box and the con-tents left us all speechless. We were emptying a truck, and when we got to the final box, I saw it was huge and barely holding together. After quite a struggle, we finally maneuvered it into the sanctu-ary. I was standing with about seven or eight of our ladies when I pulled on the top flap and one side of the box fell open.

Animal-print satin spilled everywhere. Everyone burst out laughing. This was a box of cheetah-print nightwear! My mind started racing. Whoa! What are we going to do with this? We’ve got to get rid of this before Sunday; God’s gonna kill us with this in the house! One lady said, “We can’t give that out.” Another said, “Why not? It’s free. I’m sure somebody needs it.”

So several of our ladies sorted through the collection of animal- print pajamas in all sizes. Then we took a team downtown, set up eight-foot tables, knocked on doors in nearby neighborhoods,




35

and handed out fliers. Ladies began to emerge, and the area soon looked like Wal-Mart on the Friday morning after Thanksgiving. In a matter of moments, every stitch of the nightwear was gone. Let’s just say there were a lot of smiles from the precious ladies we got to bless that special day! For years afterward, DeLynn and I would run into some of these ladies and their eyes would light up and they’d say, “You’re that crazy pastor who gave me that cheetah-print nightgown!” And if her husband was with her, invariably I’d get the “Ooh yeah” smile and head nod from him.

We were all having so much fun as a church. Working together to unload semitrucks, handing out bottles of Snapple, and going door to door delivering free food to the poor — all in the standard Louisiana 150 percent humidity. But the heat mattered little to us because of the thrill of meeting the needs of people who were so grateful to be remembered. Everyone was involved because of their passion to serve others, and that generated an energy that was contagious. When people discover the blessing of serving together, you’ve got the makings of a servolution.

The more we as a church bonded in this common mission, the more others wanted to come and be part of the excitement. The church was growing so rapidly that in less than two years, we had outgrown our facility. We had been faithful with a little, and now God was entrusting us with much. Our ser vices were going great, every Sunday we had visitors, and new people actually came back for a second ser vice, and a third, and a fourth. Most important, the culture of our church was becoming deeply rooted in the hearts of all our members. We knew God had blessed us with a mandate to be a healing place for a hurting world, and our servolution was causing us to grow at a pace none of us could have predicted.

Thank you, Jesus!



SERVOLUTION

36

SERVOLUTION STRATEGYAs our servolution grew, so did the importance of being stra-

tegic in our outreach. But the reverse was also true — the more strategic we became, the more our servolution grew. Planning, being prepared to handle growth, and learning where to focus your energy and resources are crucial to being a good steward of the blessing God sends your way.

1. The motive for ser vice. When we give with no strings attached, it shows that our love is authentic, motivated not by our needs but by meeting the needs of others. What is the motivation for your ser vice?

2. Unused resources. If HPC can give away rat bait, it proves that you can give away almost anything. What resources does your church or someone in your church have that they may be will-ing to offer? What are the resources you have in your church that are not being used? What talents, gifts, and resources can you begin giving away?

3. Church partnerships. Working with other churches is an essen-tial part of strategic servolution. What are some of the churches and ministries that you might partner with in ser vice?



MU

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RIP

SURRATTLIGONBIRD

F rom multiple locations to internet campuses, the multi-site church movement is

changing the shape of the church. What is this rapidly expanding phenomenon all about? Experience the revolution for yourself and see why it has become the “new normal” for growing churches. A Multi-Site Church Roadtrip takes you on a tour of multi-site churches across America to see how they’re handling the opportunities and challenges raised by this dynamic organizational model.

Travel with tour guides Geoff Surratt, Greg Ligon, and Warren Bird, authors of The Multi-Site Church Revolution, on their engaging and humorous tour that shows creative ways churches of all kinds are expanding their impact through multiple locations. Hear the inside stories and learn about the latest developments. Find out firsthand how the churches in this book are broadening their options for evangelism, service, and outreach—while making better use of their ministry funds.

Geoff Surratt is on the staff of Seacoast Church, a successful and high-visibility multi-site church. Geoff has twenty-seven years of ministry experience in churches. Along with his wife and two children, he lives in Charleston, SC. He is coauthor of The Multi-Site Church Revolution and author of Ten Stupid Things That Keep Churches from Growing.

Greg Ligon serves as Vice President and Director of Multi-Site Church Leadership Communities for Leadership Network, which involves location visits to over 50 multi-site churches. A capable writer, he also coauthored The Multi-Site Church Revolution and is also Leadership Network’s Publisher. He and his wife have two children and live in Dallas, TX.

Warren Bird (PhD, Fordham University) serves as a primary researcher and writer for Leadership Network and has more than ten years of church staff and seminary teaching experience. He has collaboratively written twenty books, all on subjects of church health or church innovation. Warren and his wife live just outside of New York City.

Hop on For a Guided Tour oF THe MuLTi-SiTe CHurCH MoveMenT

Cover design: Tobias’ Outerwear for Books

religiOn / Christian Church / general

USD $18.99iSBn 978-0-310-29394-1

This book is part of the leadership network innovation Series.


5

Contents

introduCing the roAdtrip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000

1 . the Multi-Site VAriety pACk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000No longer primarily for megachurches, multi-site campuses range from a few dozen people meeting in a neighborhood clubhouse to thousands of attenders in a brand-new church building.

2 . the ChurCh plAnting VerSuS CAMpuS lAunCh dileMMA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000More people are approaching the issue as “both-and” rather than “either-or.” One of the big surprises is how many church planters have embraced multi-site.

3 . getting Multi-Site into your geneS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000A multi-site church is either a church with multiple sites or a church of multiple sites. Making the all-important shift from with to of brings a significant change to the culture of the church. This subtle shift transforms the core identity of the church and will affect everything you do.

4 . you WAnt to lAunCh A CAMpuS Where? . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Choosing the right location for the next campus is one of the most difficult decisions for a multi-site church. Each church’s vision, values, and context help it shape the strategy that will have the greatest kingdom impact.

5 . ChAnging your CoMMunity one CAMpuS At A tiMe . 000Multi-site churches are transforming their communities by con-textualizing their ser vice and outreach to the unique needs of each location.

0310293944_multisite_firstpgs.indd 5 5/12/09 10:42:52 AM


6

6 . internet CAMpuSeS — VirtuAl or reAl reAlity? . . . . 000While some debate whether an online campus is really a church, others see the internet as just another neighborhood, filled with people to be reached — and where you aren’t limited by the size of a building.

7 . Fun With teChnology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000The infrastructure of a church that meets in multiple locations is often more about bandwidth and uplinks than about bricks and mortar. Balancing budget constraints and technological demands of several campuses is one of the more difficult challenges for a multi-site church.

8 . StruCture Morphing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000When a church goes from one campus to many campuses, its organizational chart is stretched to the breaking point. The abil-ity to reorganize quickly is an important skill in the multi-site church toolbox.

9 . going globAl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000The technology and mentality now exists for a church to have a campus in another country thousands of miles away, and many churches are developing a stronger level of missionary partnership in the process.

10 . ShAred CoMMuniCAtor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000For a growing number of churches, the primary teaching pastor is hundreds or thousands of miles away. This shift has big implica-tions for the campus pastor and other local staff, in terms of the vision and local leadership roles.

11 . Merger CAMpuSeS — no longer A bAd ideA . . . . . . . . 000After experiencing their first merger, some churches embrace the idea of pursuing additional, more intentional mergers, often called restarts.

12 . tWo — or More — At onCe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Launching two or more campuses at once can help a church tran-sition more quickly to a multi-site mind-set, as it engages the entire church in the process, creating even greater momentum. But the benefits should be weighed against the costs, since it can put a strain on both financial and human resources.



7

13 . Multiplied, Multiple leAderS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Good leadership is always the key to healthy, growing churches. That need multiplies and increases in multi-site churches. Effective multi-site churches have an established culture and well-developed strategies for reproducing and growing biblical leaders.

14 . Are you Sure thiS iSn’t A Sin? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000While some say going multi-site is simply a new opportunity to obey Jesus’ great commission, others raise cautions. Are there biblical values that might be lost or weakened by the multi-site growth model?

15 . grAndChildren AlreAdy? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Many churches are moving from addition to multiplication as secondary campuses begin launching campuses of their own. This new wave of “grandchildren” increases the challenges of DNA transfer.

epilogue: prediCtionS oF WhAt’S next . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000The multi-site revolution is still mushrooming, a new normal is emerging, and the implications are rich for how the next genera-tion will see and do church.

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Appendix 1: Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Appendix 2: Job Descriptions of Campus Pastors . . . . . . . . . . . 000Appendix 3: Multi-Site Roadkill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Appendix 4: Discussion Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000Index of Churches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 000



20

1 the MultI-sIte VarIety paCk

SeacoaSt church

Mount Pleasant, South Carolina



21

Fast Facts

SeacoaSt church

Church visionTo help people become devoted followers of Christ.

Year founded1988

Original locationMount Pleasant, South Carolina

Lead pastorGreg Surratt

Teaching model for off-sitesPrimarily video/DVD

DenominationNondenominational

Year went multi-site2002

Number of campuses13

Number of weekly ser vices33

Worship attendance (all physical sites) 10,000

Largest room’s seating capacity1,300

Internet campus?Yes

International campus?No

Internet addresswww.seacoast.org

Note: All data for the Fast Facts tables at the start of each chapter is from mid-2009.



22

No longer primarily for megachurches, multi-site campuses range from a few dozen people meeting in a neighborhood clubhouse to thousands of attenders in a brand-new church building.

in order for us to experience the full range of multi-site diversity, the first stop on our roadtrip will be Seacoast Church, originally located

among the old live oaks and Civil War – era plantations of Charleston, South Carolina. We’ll begin our visit a few miles outside of Charles-ton, in the small town of Manning, population 3,947.

It’s easy to miss Manning when you are driving up I-95 through the rural surroundings of South Carolina. On my first visit to Man-ning, I (Geoff) would have easily passed the expressway exit if I hadn’t seen the prominent Shoney’s billboard on the highway. A local pastor had invited me to meet him at that restaurant to discuss the possibil-ity of his church being adopted by Seacoast. Though I was excited about the discussion, I was also secretly hoping they would be having an all-you-can-eat seafood day.

After I met with the pastor and we enjoyed some excellent hot cross buns, the two of us agreed that Manning would be a great place for Seacoast’s next multi-site experiment, opening a campus in a small town. At the time, Seacoast was drawing almost ten thousand people every weekend. The campuses were spread across twelve locations throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

But what would happen if we opened a campus in a town like Manning, where the entire municipal population was only half the attendance of Seacoast? Six weeks later we found out, when Seacoast Manning was born. Soon about eighty people were gathering from across Clarendon County each weekend to worship in a rented com-munity college auditorium. From the beginning, exciting things were happening. One woman started bringing her brother to the church.



The Multi-Site Variety Pack ■ 23

“He’s now actively exploring areas of faith, church, and a relationship with Christ, none of which were really open for discussion before the Manning campus opened,” she said. My Shoney’s acquaintance, who became the campus pastor, still shares stories about friends and fam-ily who are attending. “The opening of the Manning campus was an answer to so many prayers,” he says.

An hour south of Manning is Summerville, a suburb of Charles-ton. Affordable housing and proximity to Charleston has led to a great deal of growth in Summerville, but it has still managed to maintain a small-town-America feel. The biggest event each year is the Azalea Festival, during which people come from all over the county to see flowers and eat fried things on a stick. Seacoast started a Summerville campus on Easter Sunday 2004 in a senior citizen community center, and every Sunday since that opening, campus pastor Phil Strange and his wife, Sherri, have stood at the door after ser vices and hugged people leaving the building.

The campus then relocated to its own facility, and they saw week-end attendance jump from six hundred to over twelve hundred. Pas-tor Phil has maintained the small-town feel, but he is no longer able to hug everyone who walks out the door. Though it’s not for lack of trying!

Fifteen minutes east of Summerville on I-26 is North Charleston, recently named the seventh most dangerous city in America. In the heart of North Charleston, on one of the most crime-ridden streets in the city, you’ll find the Seacoast Dream Center. Every Sunday morn-ing, six hundred people from the community gather in a little tra-ditional church building for worship that sounds a little like David Crowder, a little like Al Green, and a little like tobyMac. The crowd is an eclectic mix of African Americans, first-generation Hispanic immigrants, and blue-collar whites. Campus Pastor Sam Lesky has created a family atmosphere for people who have never known what it is to be cared for and loved unconditionally. In the midst of all the crime and urban decay, God is changing people’s lives daily.

Jumping back on the highway, we travel to Mount Pleasant, the home of Seacoast’s original campus — fifteen minutes by car but a



24 ■ The Multi-Site Church Road Trip

world away economically. Every weekend approximately 5,000 mid-dle-class suburbanites gather in three on-campus venues featuring simultaneous worship experiences. One venue is an auditorium that seats 1,300 and features contemporary worship. Another venue is a traditional 300-seat chapel featuring acoustic music sprinkled with a mix of hymns and modern worship songs. The third venue is a rug-ged 450-seat warehouse with fog, moving lights, and guitar-driven worship.

All these venues are joined by a large lobby that resembles a shop-ping mall and features a full-ser vice coffee bar and a large bookstore. Because of the variety of venues and the size of the crowd, attenders can come and go anonymously, or if they wish, they can join one of the dozens of ministries or hundreds of small groups that are part of Seacoast Church.

One Size Doesn’t Fit AllBeing one church with multiple locations has allowed Seacoast to grow larger and smaller at the same time. In the past seven years, Seacoast has seen its overall weekend attendance grow from three thousand to over ten thousand. At the same time, people are attend-ing Seacoast campuses of eighty, one hundred, three hundred, eight hun-dred, one thousand, and five thou-sand people.

Some people appreciate the ano-nymity of the large congregation. They like the safety of being able to blend into the crowd without fear of being pointed out. They want to be able to move at their own pace toward a relationship with Jesus, and the huge congregation gives them that opportunity. A smaller crowd would be intimidating.

A larger congregation can also offer a larger palette of ministries. For example, Seacoast’s largest campus offers at every ser vice a “One

Being one church with multiple locations has

allowed Seacoast to grow larger and smaller at

the same time.




by One” ministry for special-needs children. While smaller campuses may see the need for such a ministry, they often don’t have the room or the volunteers to make it happen. For some people bigger really is better.

Other people crave the intimacy available in a small-church atmo-sphere. They want to go where everybody knows their name (to bor-row from the theme song for Cheers). They want people to notice when they are missing, to know their children’s names, to ask them about their job. People in Seacoast’s smaller congregations like the fact that they know their campus pastor and that the campus pastor knows them. While a smaller campus doesn’t have state-of-the-art facilities or a large selection of specialized ministries, it can often offer closer connections and more intimate relationships.

Why the Variety Pack Works for SeacoastHaving multiple campuses of multiple sizes in multiple cities and states certainly isn’t for everyone. Many multi-site churches, such as Willow Creek in the Chicago area, try to replicate the ministries of the original site as closely as possible each time they open a new campus, although their downtown Chicago site did also take on an urban f lair. When Prestonwood Church in Greater Dallas decided to expand to more than one loca-tion, they first purchased 127 acres in Prosper (an exurb about seventeen miles north of Plano) and built a new building that somewhat rivaled their original site. Central Chris tian Church in the Phoenix area and Southeast Chris tian Church in Greater Louisville have had a lot of success with similar large-campus satellite strategies.

Seacoast, however, has purposely decided to grow larger and smaller at the same time. As a staff, we are constantly asking how we can reach more people with the gospel in a variety of contexts and

Having multiple campuses of multiple sizes in multiple cities and states certainly

isn’t for everyone.




help them grow in their faith, and for us the answer includes many different sizes and formats. We have found several advantages in the variety pack approach to multi-site campuses:

1. a Variety of opportunities to VolunteerThe complexity of having several campuses offers a new set of oppor-tunities for volunteer leaders. We have several CEOs, CFOs, and small business owners who volunteer to help us figure out the corporate side of organizing a diverse set of church campuses. While these individu-als might not be fulfilled serving the church by handing out bulletins or changing diapers, they eagerly dive into helping us figure out how to leverage the resources God has given for the maximum kingdom impact. The challenge of managing a large organization spread across three states allows these men and women to use their God-given gifts in ways that go beyond the marketplace. When the economy began to tank in recent years, we were especially thankful to have high-capacity volunteers such as these to help us steer the ship.

We also have opportunities for engineers who like to figure out traffic patterns. The parking lot at our Summerville campus has only one entrance and one exit. On some weekends the parking lot has to be turned over with only fifteen minutes between ser vices. Engineers love this kind of stuff. Summerville has cones and ropes and people wearing orange vests and waving batons in every direction, and they do an amazing job.

We also have a wide variety of ser vice opportunities for anyone who likes to work with children. We have nurseries with as few as two babies at a time, and rooms with as many as one hundred children. We utilize teachers and small group leaders and baby rockers and door monitors. Whatever a person’s gifting, experience, or availability, there is always a place for him or her to experience the joy of serving at a Seacoast campus.




2. artist Development at Various Levels of SkillHaving multiple campuses of multiple sizes allows Seacoast to develop artists of every skill level. Each week, Seacoast uses as many as twenty different bands across all the campuses. We have beginning drum-mers who are just learning how to hold the sticks playing for their junior high classmates, as well as profes-sional guitar players home from a recent tour playing for thousands of people. When we have tryouts for new musicians, the answer is always “Yes, we can use you.” We find that some people are ready to play for a big venue, some are ready to learn in a smaller environment, and some need to play in a youth band without an amplifier while they learn their instrument. The exciting part of having so many bands is that there is always an opening for new musicians.

3. Leadership Development at a Wide range of LevelsSeacoast’s multiple-size, multiple-location structure is also great for developing new leaders. There is always a place for leaders to grow, and there is no ceiling on our capacity for growing them. Small group leaders can become coaches. Coaches can become directors. Directors can become pastors. Pastors can become campus pastors. Campus pastors can become senior pastors. (And to give them an alternative to sponsoring a takeover coup in order to do that, we will help them plant their own church through the Association of Related Churches [www.relatedchurches.com].)

Another advantage for leadership development is the variety of opportunities to lead. Without ever leaving Seacoast, a leader can experience working in a megachurch environment, being on staff of a medium-size congregation, and leading a small church.

When we have tryouts for new musicians, the answer is always “Yes,

we can use you.”




A church does not have to be our current size to provide the opportunity for leadership development, of course. From our open-ing moments as a much smaller church, we’ve tried to be a place that empowers God’s people for ministry as they use their spiritual gifts and grow by serving.

4. Diversification into Multiple culturesFor the first fourteen years of its existence, Seacoast was a predomi-nately white, upper-middle-class congregation. We were a reflection of the community around us, even though some of our people drove in from other communities. All of our ministries, our music, and our messages were aimed at people who looked, talked, and lived just like “us.”

When we went multi-site, our racial and socioeconomic makeup changed. One of the healthiest side effects of having multiple locations

has been the expansion of our vision beyond the community around us.

But this benefit hasn’t come without challenges. Recently our senior pastor included in his mes-sage a major point about paying as much attention to the Bible as you

do to your BlackBerry. As you might expect, this struck a chord with our overly connected, stressed-out soccer moms and small business owners. But the urban poor in our congregation were just confused — or irritated at an implied lifestyle. The only blackberry many of them had experience with was the pie they ate for dessert last week.

Not Just SeacoastThis variety pack approach for multi-site — big and small, with diverse volunteer needs, broad leadership development opportunities, and culturally diverse membership — seems to be the normal path

When we went multi-site, our racial and socioeconomic

makeup changed.




for many churches that become one church in many locations. When the multi-site revolution first started, many of the conversations were about embracing a franchise model like that of Starbucks: do all cam-puses and venues need the same look, down to the napkins, in order to keep the DNA of the church they’re part of?

Today most multi-site churches are trading the Starbucks model for a tour through Legoland. Like Legoland, they are able to showcase a tremendous variety of sizes and designs, but it’s still evident that everything is built from the same blocks.

As an example of this new model, let’s consider New Direction Chris tian Church. They have two campuses: one in an urban sec-tion of Memphis, Tennessee, and the other in the growing suburb of

Collierville, twenty minutes east of the city. The original urban campus seats 3,000 in a boxlike converted anchor store of a shopping outlet. The suburban campus, converted from a former grocery store, is rect-angular, with the 525 seats only

eight rows deep at any point. While both campuses are over 90 percent African American, the city (or Memphis) campus has more of an urban, younger flair, while the sub-urban campus, in keeping with its neighborhood, draws more fami-lies and a higher economic class. The city campus, which occupies twenty-two acres, has signs and banners all over the property. The suburban campus, due to zoning restrictions, puts signage only on its building, and quite limited signage at that.

Yet the Lego-feel culture is unmistakable between the two cam-puses. Dr. Stacy Spencer, senior pastor, preaches live at both campuses on Sundays and during midweek ser vices. The Collierville campus pastor is also regularly visible at the Memphis campus. The program-ming of the campuses is similar, as is the heartbeat and overall sense of mission. New Direction may be reaching two different groups of people in two very different communities, but they’ve figured out how to truly be one church in two locations.

Most multi-site churches are trading the Starbucks model for a tour through

Legoland.




Staying on the Same PageIndeed, a church with campuses of different sizes and locations often struggles with a basic question of unity: “What makes us one church?” From a structural standpoint, all the campuses might share one leader-ship configuration, one budget, and one mission, but on a practical basis, what do they have in common? Does every campus need to sing the same songs each weekend? Should each campus use the same color coffee cups? Can each children’s ministry director choose a different curriculum?

After struggling for many years with these challenges, Seacoast finally drafted something called an IPOD (a concept we first heard from Jim Kuykendahl at Cross Timbers Community Church, a multi-site congregation in Argyle, Texas). This has helped us keep all of our campuses on the same page while giving each the freedom to create a unique flavor of Seacoast for their community. For our church, IPOD is an acronym (not a portable music player). It stands for Initial, Prior-ity, Optional, and Discouraged. The IPOD standards were drafted by a team of staff members and volunteers from each ministry and approved by Seacoast’s directional leadership team.

Initial. These are the nonnegotiable standards that every Sea-coast campus must have in place from the first day it opens. We try to keep these standards to the bare minimum, to ease the burden on a brand-new campus. To be in the Initial list, a standard must be equally applicable to a campus of fifty or a campus of five thousand. Initial standards for children’s ministry, for instance, include what classes will be provided and what curriculum will be used in each class.

Priority. These are standards that a campus needs to imple-ment within its first year of existence. Many of these are difficult to put into practice on your first weekend, but a campus can grow into them. Priority items for small groups, for example, include quarterly community outreach events and bimonthly huddles for small group coaches.

Optional. These are ideas that might be great at one campus but might not work well at another. One of the challenges of




various-size campuses is that the smaller ones think they have to do everything the larger or more established campuses do. This is impractical and can actually keep a smaller campus from growing.

Discouraged. These are practices that are strongly discouraged (okay, not allowed) at Seacoast campuses. Like the Initial cat-egory, this is a category we keep to a minimum. The IPOD standards are intended to be guides that allow freedom, not rules that discourage creativity. For example, our children’s ministries are discouraged from having volunteers serve alone in a room and from combining different age groups into one class.

IPODs have allowed Seacoast to remain one church of many campuses, while encouraging each of the individual campuses of many sizes to contextualize the Seacoast model so it matches the unique makeup of their community. Seacoast has been able to grow larger and smaller at the same time without losing its distinct identity.

What about You?Established larger churches like Southeast Chris tian and Prestonwood feel it is important to reproduce the original campus as closely as pos-sible, while churches like Seacoast see an advantage in “right-sizing” campuses to fit a community or culture. But what size campus best fits the vision of your church? Take time to consider your unique identity as a church. Do you need to replicate all the ministries and advantages of a large original site, or do you see niche opportunities to impact a unique community or culture? How can you best leverage the resources God has given you?

Your questions may be more about strategy than about size or location: How does launching a new campus differ from planting a

Seacoast has been able to grow larger and smaller at

the same time without losing its distinct identity.




new church? Could starting an off-site campus be a way to jump-start planting an independent church? To find the answers to these ques-tions, we head to New Hope Church in Honolulu, Hawaii. Grab your flip-flops and some sunscreen. Surf ’s up!



New in the Leadership Network Innovation Series

Ethnic Blends: Mixing Diversity into Your Local Church by Mark DeYmaz and Harry Li

"The local church today stands poised to experience what could be the 21st century's new Reformation: the rise of multi-ethnic churches. Increasingly, church leaders are now recognizing the intrinsic power and beauty of

the multi-ethnic church. Yet more than a good idea, it's a biblical, 1st century standard with far-reaching evangelistic potential.

But in a Christian culture where distinctions so often and otherwise divide, how can you and your congregation overcome the obstacles in order to become a healthy, fruitful multi-ethnic church of faith? And why should you even try?

In Ethnic Blends, multi-ethnic church pioneer Mark DeYmaz provides an up-close and personal look at seven common challenges to mixing diversity into your local church. Through real-life stories and practical illustrations, DeYmaz shows how to overcome the obstacles in order to build a healthy multi-ethnic church. He also includes the insights of other effective, multi-ethnic local church pastors from around the country.

978-0-310-32123-1


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