Video Teachings

For true success in missional churches one of the key issues comes down to "the people". I still remember talking years ago with one of my mentors. I asked him,

"What is the key issue to planting a church?" He said, "Do you really want to know?" He said, "The guy". What my mentor was saying was something very true in strongly attractional churches. You've got to have a guy that is a catalytic, charismatic personality. And he has to be skilled at developing organizations.

Now...I would not go so far as to say leadership is not important, because it very much is. The difference is that the "guy" is not a significant part of the attraction. When you have a church service that people don't come to if they know "the guy" is not preaching on that Sunday...thats a sign of sickness and something that is built on flesh and sandy soil. A truly missional church gathers around the missio dei (mission of God) and lives from the life of the community, the body of Jesus. The pastor is not the head... Jesus is. This is one of my reasons for speaking strongly against the overemphasis on sermons. Because most of that is tied to "the guy". A huge transition for missional church members to make is to understand that they all (everyone) is "the guy".

They are all important. Mission becomes the galvanizing magnet that draws the community together. They no longer gather to "worship"... it becomes a time where worshipers gather. The lives of the people become the most important sermon that gets preached on a weekly basis. No one who has never pastored can imagine the pressure of feeling that this thing(the service) will be a success or failure based on me. This is a dangerous two way street, because if it is a success it is because of "ME!"  This is woefully perverted from what we read in the New Testament

The latent power and exponential growth witnessed in the early church and today's Chinese church happens through the lives of people. At issue is this--Does the church grow... are disciples made... is a community impacted to the degree we see in the early church and the Chinese church via the energy and resources spent on sermonizing or does it happen through incarnational/sacrificial living of normal-every day Christ followers. It's a rhetorical question. Am I against preaching? No. I still preach/teach... whatever you want to call it. But the most fruit and influence comes from the time I spend one on one or with little groups of people... doing and teaching (Acts 1:1). My core point is that church planters go out everyday to start churches and they work real hard on sermons and would not even consider church apart from sermonizing, but the majority give only very little time towards discipling. In fact, most guys are afraid of discipling. It's too slow and too messy. I have always told our interns, "If you can't tell someone, 'Follow me as I follow Him,' "Imitate me...'  Then you are not fit to plant a church."

Listen, you can not talk/monologue/sermonize people into discipleship. And if you are not going to make disciples then stop playing around and calling your work a church. Just stop it, for the sake of the Kingdom of God. I'll say it again, Preaching is overratted and discipling is undervalued. Discipling is the afterthought of the church. On the other hand, Jesus was all about discipling and barely even mentioned church (twice). Churches evolve from disciples.

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