How would yours truly go about planting a church?
Things have changed since the first century when the Apostles scattered across the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean regions. They brought something totally new in many ways and it needed a bit of advertising. In those days, that meant making speeches in the public square. The early Christian evangelists were hardly the only people doing this; there were tons of pagan evangelists, as well as folks selling physical objects. Once the message found a few listening ears, the rest was by word of mouth.
The public square no longer exists and the gospel isn’t exactly news. There was noting sacred about the methods of the early evangelists. Planting new churches today is an entirely different enterprise and our methods should meet the reality of the audience.
My calling ties me to the Internet. This strips away an awful lot of tradition, not as a threat, but as simply invalid. Aside from a very basic outline of the gospel message, virtually nothing about established mainstream Christianity will fit. Indeed, I make it a point to question the entire civilizational background, so I’m really starting from scratch. I’ve done lots of work abstracting the heart and soul of the Bible message into a different context. The natural extension is abstracting the meaning of church, as well.
Fundamental to my expectations is that it would be a geographically localized body of believers seeking real time fellowship. That’s a critical part of what makes us human. Aside from some specific spiritual urging, I’m not going to target a location and simply set up operations. I’d wait for an invitation from an existing group somewhere, or someone with sufficient resources to sponsor a start.
Given what I teach, no one should be surprised that I am reluctant to involve the state in any way. Obtaining an official corporate charter with any civilian government comprises too much. Not that I would reject outright a request from an existing incorporated religious organization, but they would have know what they were getting into by inviting me.
This means a heavy investment in front-loading the awareness of the people involved. I have extensive experience in rejection, and I’m not seeking more episodes of that. Paul had a specific calling from God to invade synagogues in his travels; doing that with existing church bodies is not my calling. Things are at the point in our context that we can all save needless hassles if people are already aware of the truly different approach I take. Unless there is a core group who has read at least a few of my key books, it’s a bit much to ask of them to tolerate the shock.
By the same token, I rather expect it would take a week or two of intensive live discussion to answer unique questions they might have. Nothing can replace that face time and how the Spirit works. He’s not disabled by the virtual world, but our Lord has shown a distinct preference for personal contact. They need to form their own impression of who I am in person.
Getting past all that, there are some generalities I would predict as my normal mode of operation.
Given my avoidance of a legally incorporated body, I would insist all physical property remain in the ownership of individuals. Donating something to God need not require a legal change of ownership, and I really don’t want the necessity of wrangling over physical property to hinder God’s work. Give your church leaders money and consumables in-kind, but make it personal. This is how God works, through private individuals giving of their personal resources to whom God directs their gifts. They can seek the advice of others, but there is no need for business meetings and Western business practices. Such things have hindered the Spirit far too long.
Aside from realistic human needs, I’m not concerned with facilities. Where the people want to meet in fellowship and worship, God will provide. Let someone offer a facility or let the group scrounge up some rent. There is no need to organize around a purpose-built facility and plenty of reason to avoid it. As the group grows in size, they can figure out ways to engage more organized expressions of faith with movable equipment, always owned by some individual. A critical element of real faith is making do with who shows up and what they bring.
There are no objectives. This is the hardest part for folks to grasp. If we have to “waste time” sitting down and hashing out some very real human conflicts, that is the work of God. The whole point is people changing, not hitting all the points on some organizational checklist. If you have a schedule in your life, keep it, but don’t schedule God.
That’s because the fundamental nature of any real church is a spiritual family. We gather at some time for a family picnic at some location on a weekly basis. Yes, there should be sharing of food. During the process we’ll also share our faith in songs and teaching. How we organize those events depends on the size of the group and the net character of the people involved, but the core concept is that we are a family. We remain a family throughout the week, the rest of the year, and ideally for life. The point is not to compartmentalize worship as something we do, but to build a very real kinship on spiritual foundations, not necessarily on DNA and marriage. We expect whole households to join, but we know the world was never really that idyllic completely. Thus, the activity is simply being family that happens to gather at least one time weekly.
The Bible requires two leadership roles: pastor and elder. The former is a ritual leader; the latter is organizational. Both are spiritual leaders, but their primary activities are different in nature. The elder is like a chieftain, the real practical head of the family. The pastor is rather like a priest. Anybody man can preach and teach; that’s not relegated to any particular office. At the same time, we know that things often start with those two roles combined in one person. The role of apostle is just that. You won’t catch me using “apostle” as a title because I refuse to carry the baggage most people associate with that label. However, the apostolic function of church planting requires starting out with both roles in one person until suitable leaders arise from the body.
An elder leads deacons, but deacons are not elders, to be precise. Deacons are designated staff for specific tasks that constitute the busy work of organization. Somebody has to be reliable in handling administrative trivia, even in the ideal extended family household. In ancient times this was the more mature young men who might qualify as household soldiers, as it were. The do the grunt work characterized by physical exertion with a purpose. Women can easily hold this role, too.
Democracy is simply not consistent with God’s Word. In an ancient extended family household, the shepherd elder would have to decide for himself how much input he can handle from the rest of the household. There would be a natural level of interplay with influence and such, but despite all the flaws, this is superior to anything man has dreamed up over the ages. I realize Westerners choke on this, and keeping it under control would be a major element in teaching and counseling. That, along with the idea that God requires women to be submissive are the two biggest ongoing issues any real church would face in reclaiming the promises of the Bible.
Instead, learning ANE feudalism would be a major task in spiritual development for the congregation. By now it should be obvious the elder role is the dominant figure, not the pastoral. Real people in real situations an see that flex quite a bit, but the pastor is essentially concerned with keeping the focus on the Spirit Realm. The elder works directly with God’s Laws as the human basis for organizing how things happen. Those two jobs overlap by necessity, and the men in those roles had better be the most mature and level-headed you can find, not to mention deeply committed to the spiritual reality behind all the activity. Any church arising out of our Western social context has a lot to learn just getting adjusted to what a church should be like.
This is my current vision of church planting.
