Multi-Site Workshop with Geoff Surratt

Kairos organized a multi-site church workshop this past weekend with Geoff Surratt (The Multi-Site Revoultion, The Multi-Site Road Trip, and Measuring the Orchard-free email download) hosted at the West Houston Church of Christ. Geoff did a great job giving the ten churches represented a thoughtful, experienced based overview of what are multi-site churches and how do they work?

A Thoughtful Challenge

Geoff challenged us right away to consider where our churches are on the growth/life cycle. A church can occupy several of these spaces at the same time. That was really good news. A church that is ready to multi-site will be in the parent stage where their purpose is to multiply and their fruit is new disciples. The challenge is that only 4% of all the churches in America will ever multiply, either through multiple campuses or through church planting. This implies that most of our churches are deliberately on birth control or are sterile by design. Ouch!

Some Great Questions
As a church looks at how it will fulfill God's mission of redemption (evangelizing) and transformation (discipling) Geoff asked us to answer these following five questions. Warning: these questions are not for the faint of heart or the blithe of spirit:

1.  What do we value as a church? These are our real, lived out values demonstrated by what we do, what we spend our time and money, and what we make decisions on.

2.  What are we uniquely good at? One church may be really good at worship experiences, another at teaching children, while a third is really good at discipling. Here's a caveat, the standard for "uniquely good" is not what we think, it is what those who are not part of us and who are not yet believers think about us. How can we know this? We have to invite them to observe then ask for their frank opinion!

3.  What is reproducible? Some things we might be able to reproduce really well while other good activities are not really reproducible at all at another time or place.

4.  What is dispensable? What are our traditions or habits that have developed because of our time

and space that we really don't have to and don't want to reproduce somewhere else? This is the place to ask about how beneficial and healthy our ministries really are. Do we have to reproduce in a new site every ministry that is operating at the original site?

What Most Impacts the Success or Failure of a Multi-Site Campus?

Answer: the campus pastor. 


Geoff was adamant: "At Seacoast church we will not hire a campus pastor unless he has been through church planter assessment."

Kairos Recognized at Pepperdine University

Last week was the 70th annual Pepperdine University Bible Lectureship. Mike Cope, a dear friend

and fellow preaching partner from our college days now directs these lectures.

The Kairos network had 14 program events with 17 presenters at this year's lectureship, including David Clayton, planter of Ethos Church in Nashville, TN, as a keynote presenter.

At the Friday evening banquet Kairos Church Planting was recognized with the Distinguished Ministry Award with these words: "Whose innovative ministry is both blessing existing churches and recruiting and equipping Christian leaders to plan new churches--all to the glory of God."

Pepperdine University has played an important role in the birth and growth of Kairos. We're thankful to have been a part of the Pepperdine Lectureship program since 2004. Thank you Mike, Rick Gibson, Dr. Benton and Pepperdine for your encouragement and recognition.

What Will It Take?

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There has been a stirring discussion on the internet recently about the decline of the Churches of Christ led by two dynamic, mid-career leaders in our fellowship:  JamesNored “Why Churches of Christ are Shrinking” and Jason Locke “Decline and Renewal” (my contribution was #16 in Jason’s series). James said his posts had received over 30,000 hits the month his series was published and his classes on the same topic at the Tulsa Soul-Winning Workshop in March were full. Our ears our tuned in and we’re trying to listen.

Knowing (and believing) that we are declining is part of the diagnosis: decline is the symptom and the authors have put forward a number of valid reasons for the cause. But where we want our attention to be drawn is to the solution. What will it take to move beyond where we are today towards a future that is God honoring and pleasing?

Since we began Kairos Church Planting in 2005 I’ve traveled the country widely and have been able to talk with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of church leaders and have heard their concerns and struggles. We’ve worked with hundreds of people who have considered the missional call of starting a new generation of 21^st century churches (this month the seventy-second couple went through a Kairos Discovery Lab). From the perspective of this experience I’ve asked myself this question:

What are the three most critical adjustments we could make that would have the most positive impact among Churches of Christ for the kingdom of God?

Here are my short answers to this question as a prologue. I’ll flesh these out further in this blog over the next few weeks:

1.         Reorient our understanding of God’s mission

As a restoration movement our focus has been firmly on the past. The idea of a perfect New Testament church that serves as model (command), example, and necessary inference became the essence of our biblical hermeneutic. It also locked us down. Our understanding of mission that resulted was that of “purification” where our driving motive was to “do it right” and “make others right.”

A reoriented understanding of mission must be future focused. A future focused mission will have transformation has its hallmark rather than purification. Our missional message will be “Repent because the kingdom is coming,” our missional emphasis will be on God’s transforming work in people and the world, and our missional focus will be to “seek and save the lost.”

2.         Change our leadership pattern and expectations

Our current leadership structure places elders at the top of our organizational pyramid, typically followed by deacons, and then “hired” ministry staff. This structure is vision and leadership impaired, at least in our typical practice. It is maintenance oriented. The result is rather than being able to adapt to the challenges facing us we say, “It will take us ten years to get there.” But in that time we will find ourselves twenty years behind and the opportunities have long since passed us by.

There is another leadership pattern, the full circle of biblical leadership that I have blogged about before, that allows God-gifted and community recognized leaders to lead according to the gifts and abilities God has given them for vision creation (prophet/apostle), directive development (king), relationship maintenance (priest), and disciple-making (shepherd).

When we release our leaders to lead we may find that we will be able to do and be what God is asking of us.

3.         Trust our theological heritage and our younger leaders

To state it frankly, we don’t trust our younger leaders, those thirty year olds who are actually mid-career leaders. In the 1970s and 1980s we had a dynamic crop of younger leaders who built and accomplished significant tasks. Somewhere along the way we determined that these, now our oldest leaders, sufficiently answered the questions we face. That’s a wrong conclusion. What they did do was what our theological heritage does well when we practice it. They identified the questions and went to the biblical text for the answers that fit their time and context.

If we are to experience a dynamic future we must release our younger leaders to address the questions we are facing today, go to the biblical text for answers, and trust these leaders to seek the answers as God guides them.

7 Characteristics of New Church Preaching

We're getting ready for Discovery Lab the first week of April. 
There will be six couples meeting with an

Wilson Parrish, Sherwood, OR

interview team at Camp Manatawny, Pennsylvania. As part of their preparation process we listen to a sermon they give somewhere as well as having them present a worship experience live.  As we listen to these sermons we grade them (yep, everything done publicly gets graded in one way or another). Here are the seven characteristics we listen for and grade on: 

1.     Confident and authoritative in presentation without superiority. The planter should exhibit his own commitment to faith and to the Savior who is at his faith’s core. The planter should show that he is convicted by the truths he preaches, that he is committed to living out this message in his own life, and that he is sensitive to (and honest about) the challenges that Christian faith makes to believers and non-believers.

a.     The presenter strikes me as being a committed follower of Jesus

b.     I believe he knows and understands people like me

c.     I feel like I can believe what this person has to say

2.     Combines careful study with positive application. The content of the sermon comes from God’s unchanging Word in Scripture. But the context in which that Word must be applied is always changing. The planter must demonstrate an awareness of the culture, the issues of the day, and the particulars of a given group of people.

a.     This sermon talked about issues or topics that I have wondered about

b.     I came away with a clear idea of how this truth relates to my daily life

c.     I have a better idea of what God expects of me

d.   In response, I intend to change something in my beliefs or behaviors

3.    Raises conscious awareness of the divine within hearers. The result of presenting the powerful gospel should be changed lives (Romans 1:16). Longtime believers should feel energized for service and bolstered in their hope and joy. Seekers should feel passionately called to believe in Jesus as Lord. Non-believers should feel the wistful tug of belief and a growing desire to explore further the gospel message of life.

a.     My understanding of God/Christ has increased

b.     My awe of God/Christ has increased

c.     My commitment to learn more about God/Christ has increased

d.     This sermon gave me hope

4.     Attractive/winsome. The planter is the visible representative of the risen Lord and the word that he presents. The planter’s persona, how he presents himself, is critical. He should demonstrate a personal magnetism, be seen as a person others enjoy being with, and present himself and the message with authentic humility.

a.     I enjoyed hearing this person present this lesson

b.     This is a person I would be comfortable introducing to my friends

c.     I want to hear this person again

5.     Dynamic. The planter should present himself and the message with energy and passion. In our post-modern context the right to be heard must be earned at every presentation; it is no longer an inherent right because of role or status. The planter should create a desire in people to listen to what he has to say.

a.     The presenter engaged me with this message quickly

b.     I would love to have had my unchurched friends hear this sermon

c.     The presenter challenged or convicted me through this sermon

6.     Preparation. The sermon should show evidence of forethought, planning, and purpose in both content and presentation. In the new church context the planter is the spiritual guide and leader. The sermon should demonstrate his personal journey with the text--its content, meaning, and its application--in such a way that the audience leaves knowing they could take that journey too.

a.     The teaching was clearly based upon the Bible

b.     Illustrative material clarified key principles

c.     I now have a better idea of what God offers me

7.     Awareness of unbelief in audience. The planter should show awareness that people with no church background, or at various stages of coming to belief, could be in the audience. He does this by orienting people to the text (not just assuming they know a story, a person, or an event), helping them know where to find it (often be giving a page number in provided Bibles), using language that is accessible to those with little biblical exposure, and speaking to both believers and non-believers.

a.     I sense the speaker really cares about the audience

b.     I understood all the terms that were used

c.     Someone new to the church would have understood the vocabulary and context for the sermon

Preaching in the New Church

Preaching is a critical component for a successful new church. Think about it, dynamic, healthy

Scott Christensen, Renovo, 
Puyallup, WA

churches almost always have good preaching while bad preaching many times leads to church stress and ill health.

Preaching in a church plant poses a unique challenge as believers, seekers (those considering belief), and non-believers will be sitting side by side. Good preaching in the church plant must lead and grow the believers, to seekers it must make the word of God accessible, relevant, and understandable, and for the non-believer the sermon must present significant ideas and interest that allows them opportunity to consider God as a credible source of wisdom and a reasonable means for living.

Larry Moyer in an article titled “Evangelistic Preaching” provides helpful insight on the type of preaching most needed in a new church context (p. 11). Moyer says the sermon in a new church should:

·       Provide a message with a clear, sharp focus

·       Be aware of the biblical illiteracy of the audience

·       Present less of the exegetical work on the text (backgrounds, language, history, etc.)

·       Have a simple organizational structure

·       Reveal life through relevant illustrations and questions

·       Be humorous

 

Ed Stetzer places the sermon as a key part of what he calls the seeker-comprehensible worship experience. Seeker-comprehensible worship creates an experience of both ‘God-centrality’ and openness toward the needs of seekers. “Seeker-comprehensible worship is a gathering that offers God honor, through worship and the preaching of the Scriptures, while providing a relevant atmosphere in which unbelievers are challenged to come to saving faith in Christ” (Planting Missional Churches, p. 263).

Resources:

Zack Eswine. Preaching To A Post-Everything World. Baker, 2008.

Larry Moyer. “Evangelistic Preaching.” In Leadership Handbooks of Practical Theology, Volume 1: Word and Worship, James D. Berkley, gen. ed. Baker, 1992.

Ed Stetzer. Planting Missional Churches. B&H, 2006.

Part 2 next week: Seven Characteristics of New Church Preaching

How to Make Church Decisions

Interesting title? Here's an observed fact: 9 out of 10 churches I've worked with do not have a useful decision making process they use.

That may sound like a bold statement but when I ask, "How will this decision be made in this church  and who will make it?" the most often given answer is an embarrassed shrug of the shoulders and eventually "the elders will make it."

Here's a corollary statement: elderships in our fellowship are generally ill-equipped to make decisions.

So here's our two statements:

1.  9 out of 10 churches do not have a useful decision making process they use
2.  Elderships in our fellowship are generally ill-equipped to make decisions.

What sparked my writing on decision making is a recent blog post at Church & Culture (James Emory White) titled Bone Structure. White makes the statement, I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating it is to lead a seminar or conference, lay out some simple decision or action that would radically improve a church’s health or effectiveness, and have it be met by a chorus of leaders saying, “We can’t do that."

This has been both my experience and my feelings as well. Elderships at heart are a committee and we're all probably familiar with the phrase 'committees are where ideas go to die.' And when we look at the role of elders the capacity to make body-level decisions may be implied, but it is not explicit. The result is that a man may be well qualified to be a shepherding elder but he may not be gifted or experienced at making body-level decisions. The result is the weakest link in the group holds back the others.

The second common scenario is that one person holds a minority view yet because of character strength, respect by others, or willingness to "die on the sword" rather than change opinions that person effectively employs the one-person veto. Either way, low capability to make body-level decisions or the one-person veto, decisions cannot be made and so opportunities are missed.

So what answer can be given? White says, "Let leaders lead." That still leaves the question open as the what leaders? Here's my answer: those people who have both the personality capacity and role authority. If a person by personality type is able to assess situations and options then to make decisions easily let's lean on this giftedness from God. It also means that we lean on the church body to recognize people for leader roles. When personality type and role coincide we  recognize both God's gifting and the church's wisdom. Let's then release these God-gifted, community recognized people to do what they are best suited to do: make decisions.

The Millenial Sermon Dance

I'm studying the art of preaching from the rising millenial generation of preachers in our church plants and in other churches. There's a visual art to preaching today that is fascinating. It's the body language that attaches to the spoken language.

Here's how the dance goes:

• Keep your elbows into your body, knees are often kept together too. Bend the knees slightly and when you get intense bend forward at the waist. This is the posture of humility. It lets your audience know you are not telling them (i.e., demanding, forcing, or dominating) but suggesting that what you have to say is something good and in the best interests of everyone, including yourself.
• The basic foot movement is a triangle in a box. The triangle is the base and many preachers step forward, back, and to the side around the triangle, usually in one direction. Moving forward toward the audience is to draw attention to a point. Moving back releases people.
• The box allows the preacher to move from side to side in the "engaged" position relative to the audience. You can step straight back into the relaxed position, step to the point of the triangle and into the basic movement, or if you're pulling your audience through your point you can two-step across the engaged position to capture the width of your audience.

Why is this physical presentation important? It's about connection. The millenial generation is a visually oriented generation. They live in a media-saturated world where video, images, and stage are ever present. This produces what could be called the "visual gate." When a millenial walks into a room they scan the room for the visual social cues that tell them whether this is one of their places or not.

This same visual gate is active in the sermon context. Before a millenial will give the speaker the "right to be heard" the speaker must visually present himself in a manner that respects the audience and connects with their value system.

If you want to see the "Millenial Sermon Dance" on video watch Francis Chan-The Thrill of Obedience and you'll see Chan use the dance as part of his communication strategy.

What have you noticed about the physical act of preaching in a millenial context? Please let me know: email me.