Discipleship, Leadership and Church Planting

Is structure a bad word in organic church? Can systems be organic or are they only institutional? How do you organize a decentralized, rapidly expanding, spontaneous multiplication movement without killing it in the process?

Perhaps the real question is this: can we be out of control and still have order? I believe the answer is yes. We can have order in chaos and structure without control, but it must come in a different pattern than what we are accustomed to and emerge from a very different foundation.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

"In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes."  Judges 21:25

You may have heard this scripture read as descriptive of a problem to be solved by establishing a king and often the person reading it is presenting themselves as the king that you need to submit to in order to solve the problem!    In reality it is simply two statements placed side by side.  It was true that there was no king in Israel.  It was  true that everyone was doing whatever he pleased.

Here is a simple approach to begin a new organic church. This simple approach is not 'easy' but if you follow these steps, a church will emerge. If you apply these principles, please write us and let us know about your experience. You can e-mail me(edwaken@cox.net) with your experiences.

The following steps are NOT meant to be followed in a prescribed order. These are principles that will more often be layered on top of another. The key is that all of these principles need to be practiced with various people all the time.

Editors Note:

This is a very challenging article that asks some very good questions. It may make some pastors very uncomfortable, and at first read you may not fully agree with what is written here because of what you have seen and experienced.

Our hope is that this article will simply motivate you to study freshly the topic of leadership in the local church. The questions before us are not about model or method, but more importantly-does the way we lead our churches magnify Christ as the Head and allow for the true practice of the priesthood of all believers? Does the way we view leadership limit the multiplication of disciples and churches?

May we be open to allow God to speak to us freshly.

In our quest to be part of a powerful move of God's kingdom, we often are tempted to think the solution will come from a complex composite of things that produce the results we so desperately long for. We cry out to the heavens for a solution that will finally change the church forever. Many travel every year to new seminars and conferences, buying the latest books and binders full of new methods in our search for the answer. The primal scream of our hearts is a search for spiritual success that will ultimately change the world. To our query of the universe, Albert Einstein once commented, "When the solution is simple, God is answering." In this article, we will describe the practical ways our team-Church Multiplication Associates-has used to multiply and network house churches that saturate neighborhoods and nations with the message of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps the single most consistent need among Christian leaders is for people who can lead ministries. The vast majority of churches I have encountered in my travels all could use more leaders to maintain their ministries. So many churches have more children than child workers and more students than student workers. Everyone could use more musicians.

There are always a few churches, however, that do not have this struggle. There seems to be at least one church in every city that doesn't have the same overbearing need. They have all the leaders they need, and more. Why is that? Why are some churches full of more leaders than they need, while the rest are all struggling in manpower poverty? I know the secret. I will share it with you now and you too can have more than enough leaders and resources to accomplish all the work God has called you to do.

The Problem with Recruitment

The churches that have the most leaders do not recruit leaders at all. That is why they have enough. The churches that recruit can never find enough. Below I will share some of the reasons why.

Editors Note:

Every day new visitors are coming to our site. In order to expose them to some of our best articles, and to create fresh discussion among those of us who have been active on the site a long time, we will from time to time repost an past article like this one. This article has been a favorite of many people. We invite you to read it for the first time or read it again. Take a moment to add your thoughts and commentary and let's learn together how we can honor and magnify Jesus and join Him in building His kingdom.

Word on the street is that people out there are tired of organized religion. Rather, they are longing for a genuine connection with "the supernatural" and with a community of friends.

If we are going to transition from church-as-we-know-it (a box) to a dynamic Spirit-filled movement, we will also have to transition from leadership-as-we-know-it to something else.

Alan Creech says the WHOLE thing has to be reinvented:

I mean full-time, paid staff pastors who preach every Sunday and do pretty much all the ministry and stress themselves silly over every little thing in the community. I think this will kill us if we keep this up. It's beginning to happen, but we've really got to re-envision what it means to be a pastor, leader, elder, whatever in our new churches. I don't think we can afford to keep the old pastoral paradigm alive any more. We can't do that and expect to happen what we want to happen in these communities.

The focus needs to change from "our house" to "their house" Much of the present house church movement is still an attempt to contain and control the meetings in their own camp. The full gains that are available will not be realised until we can begin to let the movement flow into THEIR HOUSES.

“Now it came to pass in those days that Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He continued all night in prayer to God. And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles.”
Luke 6:12-13

Jesus selected apostolic leaders from among his new-found disciples. Finding leaders is the greatest challenge leaders face. Yet, some leaders attract more leaders and others struggle to find or keep any leaders. Why? Certainly part of the answer lies in the gift of a leader, but there are also certain truths we can practice that will make us attractive to the emerging leaders in our sphere of influence.

The most gifted leaders I know practice these seven laws of leadership selection ...